The Religion of Science Library 



Number 25 Price, 50c 

Bi-Monthly MAY, 1897 Yearly, $1.50 

Entered at the Chicago Post Ofiice as Second Class Mail Matter. 



Thouglits on Religion 



BY THE LAT^ 

GEORGE JOHN ROMANES 



EDITED BY 

CHARLES QORE, M.A. 



THIRD EDITION 



CHICAGO 

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1897 



3^'^ 



/7^ 



RECENT WORKS BY G.J, ROMANES, M. A, 

DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN: An Exposition of 
the Darwinian Theory, and a Discussion of Post-Dar- 
winian Questions. 
Part 1. The Darwinian Theory. Cloth, $2.00. 
Part 2. Post- Darwinian Questions. (In press.) 
Edited by C. Lloyd Morgan. 
AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM. Cloth $2.00. 



CHICAGO 

The Open Court Publishing Co. 



THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 



THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 



BY THE LATE 



y 



GEORGE JOHN ROMANES 

M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 



EDITED BY 



CHARLES GORE, M.A. 

t 

CANON OF WESTMINSTER 



THIRD EDITION 



CHICAGO 

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1897 



J 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Editor's Preface 5 



PART I. 

The Influence of Science upon Religion. 

Essay I .37 

Essay II • 5^ 

PART II. 

Notes for a Work on a Candid Examination 
OF Religion. 

Introductory Note by the Editor .... 97 

§ I. Introductory 104 

§ 2. Definition of Terms and Purpose of this 

Treatise no 

§ 3. Causality .123 

§ 4. Faith .140 

§ 5. Faith in Christianity 164 

Concluding Note by the Editor .... 196 



EDITOR^S PREFACE. 

The late Mr. George John Romanes — the 
author within the last few years of Darwin and 
After Darwi?i^ and of the Exami?iation of Weismann- 
ism — occupied a distinguished place in contem- 
porary biology. But his mind was also continu- 
ously and increasingly active on the problems of 
metaphysics and theology. And at his death in 
the early summer of this year (1894), he left 
among his papers some notes, made mostly in the 
previous winter, for a work which he was intend- 
ing to write on the fundamental questions of 
religion. He had desired that these notes should 
be given to me and that I should do with them as 
I thought best. His literary executors accord- 
ingly handed them over to me, in company with 
some unpublished essays, two of which form the 
first part of the present volume. 

After reading the notes myself, and obtaining 
the judgment of others in whom I feel confidence 
upon them, I have no hesitation either in publishing 
by far the greater part of them, or in publishing 
them with the author's name in spite of the fact 
that the book as originally projected was to have 
been anonymous. From the few words which 
George Romanes said to me on the subject, I have 

5 



6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

no doubt that he realized that the notes if pub- 
lished after his death must be published with his 
name. 

I have said that after reading these notes I 
feel no doubt that they ought to be published. 
They claim it both by their intrinsic value and by 
the light they throw on the religious thought of 
a scientific man who was not only remarkably able 
and clear-headed, but also many-sided, as few 
men are, in his capacities, and singularly candid 
and open-hearted. To all these qualities the 
notes which are now offered to the public will 
bear unmistakable witness. 

With more hesitation it has been decided to 
print also the. unpublished essays already referred 
to. These, as representing an earlier stage of 
thought than is represented in the notes, naturally 
appear first. 

Both Essays and Notes, however, represent 
the same tendency of mind from a position of 
unbelief in the Christian Revelation toward one 
of belief in it. They represent, I say, a tendency 
of one * seeking after God if haply he might feel 
after Him and find Him,' and not a position of 
settled orthodoxy. Even the Notes contain in 
fact many things which could not come from a 
settled believer. This being so it is natural that 
I should say a word as to the way in which I have 
understood my function as an editor. I have 
decided the question of publishing each Note 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 7 

solely by the consideration whether or no it was 
sufficiently finished to be intelligible. I have 
rigidly excluded any question of my own agree- 
ment or disagreement with it. In the case of one 
Note in particular, I doubt whether I should have 
published it had it not been that my decided dis- 
agreement with its contents made me fear that I 
might be prejudiced in withholding it. 

The Notes, with the papers which precede 
them, will, I think, be better understood if I give 
some preliminary account of their antecedents, 
that is, of Romanes' previous publications on the 
subject of religion. 

In 1873 an essay of George Romanes gained 
the Burney Prize at Cambridge, the subject being 
Christian Prayer considered in relation to the belief 
that the Almighty governs the world by general laws. 
This was published in 1874, with an appendix on 
The Physical Efficacy of Prayer, In this essay, writ- 
ten w^hen he was twenty-five years old, Romanes 
shows the characteristic qualities of his mind and 
style already developed. The sympathy with 
the scientific point of view is there, as might be 
expected perhaps in a Cambridge 'Scholar in 
Natural Science:' the logical acumen and love 
of exact distinctions is there : there too the nat- 
ural piety and spiritual appreciation of the nature 
of Christian prayer — a piety and appreciation 
which later intellectual habits of thought could 
never eradicate. The essay, as judged by the 



8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

standard of prize compositions, is of remarkable 
ability, and strictly proceeds within the limits of 
the thesis. On the one side, for the purpose of 
the argument, the existence of a Personal God is 
assumed,^ and also the reality of the Christian 
Revelation which assures us that we have reason 
to expect real answers, even though conditionally 
and within restricted limits, to prayers for physical 
goods. 2 On the other side, there is taken for 
granted the belief that general laws pervade the 
observable domain of physical nature. Then the 
question is considered — how is the ph3^sical effi- 
cacy of prayer which the Christian accepts on 
the authority of revelation compatible with the 
scientifically known fact that God governs the 
world by general laws? The answer is mainly 
found in emphasizing the limited sphere within 
which scientific inquiry can be conducted and 
scientific knov/ledge can obtain. Special divine 
acts of response to prayer, even in the physical 
sphere, 7nay occur — force may be even originated 
in response to prayer — and still not produce any 
phenomenon such as science must take cogni- 
zance of and regard as miraculous or contrary to 
the known order. 

On one occasion the Notes refer back to this 
essay, ^ and more frequently, as we shall have 
occasion to notice, they produce thoughts which 
had already been expressed in the earlier work but 

^p. 6 2p, 183. 33ee p u^^ 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 9 

had been obscured or repudiated in the interval. 
I have no grounds for knowing whether in the main 
Romanes remained satisfied with the reasoning and 
conclusion of his earliest essay, granted the theistic 
hypothesis on which it rests. But this hypothesis 
itself, very shortly after publishing this essay, he 
was led to repudiate. In other words, his mind 
moved rapidly and sharply into a position of 
reasoned scepticism about the existence of God 
at all. The Burney Essay was published in 
1874. Already in 1876 at least he had written 
an anonymous work with a wholly sceptical con- 
clusion, entitled * A Candid Examination of The- 
ism,' by PhysicMs} As the Notes were written 
with direct reference to this work, some detailed 
account of its argument seems necessary ; and 
this is to be found in the last chapter of the work 
itself, where the author summarizes his arguments 
and draws his conclusions. I venture therefore 
to reproduce this chapter at length.^ 

*§ I. Our analysis is now at an end, and a 
very few words will here suffice to convey an 

^Published in Triibner's English and Foreign Philosophical 
Library in 1878, but written 'several years ago' (preface). 'I 
have refrained from publishing it/ the author explains, * lest, after 
having done so, I should find that more mature thought had mod- 
ified the conclusions which the author sets forth.' 

^At times I have sought to make the argument of the chap- 
ter more intelligible by introducing references to earlier parts of 
the book or explanations in my ov/n words. These latter I have 
inserted in square brackets, 



lo THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

epitomized recollection of the numerous facts 
and conclusions which we have found it necessary 
to contemplate. We first disposed of the con- 
spicuously absurd supposition that the origin of 
things, or the mystery of existence [i. e. the fact 
that anything exists at all], admits of being 
explained by the theory of Theism in any further 
degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it 
was shown that the argument **Our heart requires 
a God'* is invalid, seeing that such a subjective 
necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient 
to prove — or even to render probable — an object- 
ive existence. And with regard to the further 
argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations 
points to God as to their explanatory cause, it 
became necessary to observe that the argument 
could only be admissible after the possibility of 
the operation of natural causes [in the production 
of our theistic aspirations] had been excluded. 
Similarly the argument from the supposed intui- 
tive necessity of individual thought [i. e. the 
alleged fact that men find it impossible to rid 
themselves of the persuasion that God exists] was 
found to be untenable, first, because even if the 
supposed necessity were a real one, it would only 
possess an individual applicability ; and second, 
that, as a matter of fact, it is extremely improbable 
that the supposed necessity is a real necessity even 
for the individual who asserts it, while it is abso- 
lutely certain that it is not such to the vast 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. ii 

majority of the race. The argument from the 
general consent of mankind, being so obviously 
fallacious both as to facts and principles, was passed 
over without comment; while the argument from 
a first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. 
Lastly, the argument that, as human volition is 
a cause in nature, therefore all causation is probably 
volitional in character, was shown to consist in 
a stretch of inference so outrageous that the 
argument had to be pronounced worthless. 

*§ 2. Proceeding next to examine the less 
superficial arguments in favor of Theism, it was 
first shown that the syllogism. All known minds 
are caused by an unknown mind ; our mind is a 
known mind ; therefore our mind is caused by an 
unknown mind — is asyllogism that is inadmissible 
for two reasons. In the first place, it does not 
account for mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a 
prior mind for its origin; and therefore, although 
the hypothesis, if admitted, would be an explana- 
tion of known mind, it is useless as an argument for 
the existence of the unknown mind, the assump- 
tion of which forms the basis of that explanation. 
Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind 
is so far an entity sui ge?teris that it must be either 
self-existing or caused by another mind, there is 
no assignable warrant for the assertion. And this 
is the second objection to the above syllogism; 
for anything within the whole range of the possi- 
ble may, for aught that we can tell, be competent 



12 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus 
an objector to the above syllogism need not hold 
any theory of things at all; but even as opposed 
to the definite theory of materialism, the above 
syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis 
to stand upon. We know that what we call matter 
and force are to ail appearances eternal, while we 
have no corresponding evidence of a mind that 
is even apparently eternal. Further, within expe- 
rience mind is invariably associated with highly 
differentiated collocations of matter and distribu- 
tions of force, and many facts go to prove, and 
none to negative, the conclusion that the grade 
of intelligence invariably depends upon, or at 
least is associated with, a corresponding grade of 
cerebral development. There is thus both a quali- 
tative and a quantitative relation between intelli- 
gence and a cerebral organization. And if it is 
said that matter and motion cannot produce con- 
sciousness because it is inconceivable that they 
should, we have seen at some length that this is 
no conclusive consideration as applied to a sub- 
ject of the confessedly transcendental nature, and 
that in the present case it is particularly inconclu-* 
sive, because, as it is speculatively certain that 
the substance of mind must be unknowable, it 
seems a priori probable that, whatever is the cause 
of the unknowable reality, this cause should be 
more difficult to render into thought in that 
relation than would some other hypothetical sub- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 13 

stance which is imagined as more akin to mind. 
And if it is said that the more conceivable cause 
is the more probable cause, we have seen that it 
is in this case impossible to estimate the validity 
of the remark. Lastly, the statement that the 
cause must contain actually all that its effects can 
contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and 
contradicted by everyday experience; while the 
argument from the supposed freedom of the 
will and the existence of the moral sense was 
negatived both deductively by the theory of 
evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of 
utilitarianism.' The theory of the freedom of 
the will is indeed at this stage of thought 
utterly untenable ; ^ the evidence is overwhelm- 
ing that the moral sense is the result of a purely 
natural evolution,^ and this result, arrived at 
on general grounds, is confirmed with irresist- 
ible force by the account of our human con- 
science which is supplied by the theory of utilita- 
rianism, a theory based on the widest and most 
unexceptionable of inductions.^ * On the whole, 
then, with regard to the argument from the exist- 
ence of the human mind, we were compelled to 
decide that it is destitute of any assignable weight, 
there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion 
that our mind has been caused by another mind, 
than to the conclusion that it has been caused by 
anything else whatsoever. 

^p. 25 ^p. 29. ^p. 29. 



14 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

' § 3. With regard to the argument from Design, 
it was observed that Mill's presentation of it [in 
his Essay on Theisnt] is merely a resuscitation of 
the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and 
Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first- 
named writer treated this whole subject with a 
feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in him; 
for while he has failed to assign anything like due 
weight to the inductive evidence of organic 
evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a 
supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. 
Morever, he has failed signally in his aiialysis 
of the Design argument, seeing that, in common 
with all previous writers, he failed to observe that 
it is utterly impossible for us to know the relations 
in which the supposed Designer stands to the 
Designed — much less to argue from the fact that 
the Supreme Mind, even supposing it to exist, 
caused the observable products by any particular 
intellectual process. In other words, all advocates 
of the Design argument have failed to perceive 
that, even if we grant nature to be due to a creat- 
ing Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to 
conclude that this Mind can only have exerted its 
creative power by means of such and such cogi- 
tative operations. How absurd, therefore, must 
it be to raise the supposed evidence of such cogi- 
tative operations into evidences of the existence 
of a creating Mind! If a theist retorts that it is, 
after all, of very little importance whether or not 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 15 

we are able to divine the methods of creation, so 
long as the facts are there to attest that, ^>^ some 
way or other, the observable phenomena of nature 
must be due to Intelligence of some kind as their 
ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this 
remark. It has always appeared to me one of the 
most unaccountable things in the history of specu- 
lation that so many competent writers can have 
insisted upon Desigfi as an argument for Theism, 
when they must all have known perfectly well 
that they have no means of ascertaining the 
subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind 
whose existence the argument is adduced to 
demonstrate. The truth is, that the argument, 
from teleology must, and can only, rest upon the 
observable facts of nature, without reference to 
the intellectual processes by which these facts may 
be supposed to have been accomplished. But, 
looking to the '' present state of our knowledge," 
this is merely to change the teleological argument 
in its gross Paleyian form, into the argument from 
the ubiquitous operation of general laws.' 

'§4.' This argument was thus^ stated in con- 
trast with the argument from design. * The argu- 
ment from design says. There must be a God, 
because such and such an organic structure must 
have been due to such and such an intellectual 
process. The argument from general laws says. 
There must be a God, because such and such an 

^p. 45. 



i6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

organic structure must in some way or other have been 
ultimately due to intelligence/ Every structure 
exhibits with more or less of complexity the 
principle of order ; it is related to all other things 
in a universal order. This universality of order 
renders irrational the hypothesis of chance in 
accounting for the universe. * Let us think of the 
supreme causality as we may, the fact remains 
that from it there emanates a directive influence of 
uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous 
magnitude and exact precision worthy of our 
highest conception of deity.'' The argument 
was developed in the words of Professor Baden 
Powell. * That which requires reason and thought 
to understand must be itself thought and reason. 
That which mind alone can investigate or express 
must be itself mind. And if the highest con- 
ception attained is but partial, then the mind and 
reason studied is greater than the mind and reason 
of the student. If the more it is studied the 
more vast and complex is the necessary 
connection in reason disclosed, then the more 
evident is the vast extent and compass of the 
reason thus partially manifested and its reality as 
existing in the immutably corinected order of objects 
examined^ independently of the mind of the 
investigator.' This argument from the universal 
Kosmos has the advantage of being wholly inde- 
pendent of the method by which things came 
ip. 47. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 17 

to be what they are. It is unaffected by the 
acceptance of evolution. Till quite recently it 
seemed irrefutable.^ 

* But nevertheless we are constrained to 
acknowledge that its apparent power dwindles to 
nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if 
force and matter have been eternal, all and every 
natural law must have resulted by way of 
necessary consequence. ... It does not admit 
of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly 
true that all the exquisite beauty and melodious 
harmony of nature follow necessarily as inevi- 
tably from the persistence of force and the 
primary qualities of matter as it is certainly true 
that force is persistent or that matter is extended 
or impenetrable.^ ... It will be remembered 
that I dwelt at considerable length and with much 
earnestness upon this truth, not only because of 
its enormous importance in its bearing upon our 
subject, but also because no one has hitherto con- 
sidered it in that relation.* It was also pointed 
out that the coherence and correspondence of the 
macrocosm of the universe with the microcosm of 
the human mind can be accounted for by the fact 
that the human mind is only one of the products 
of general evolution, its subjective relations 
necessarily reflecting those external relations of 
which they themselves are the product.^ 

*§ 5. The next step, however, was to mitigate 
^p. 51. ^p. 62. ^p. 60. 



i8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the severity of the conclusion that was liable to be 
formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all 
the possible arguments in favour of Theism. 
Having fully demonstrated that there is no shadow 
of a positive argument in support of the theistic 
theory, there arose the danger that some persons 
might erroneously conclude that for this reason 
the theistic theory must be untrue. It therefore 
became necessary to point out that although, as 
far as we can see, nature does not require an 
Intelligent Cause to account for any of her phe- 
nomena, yet it is possible that, if we could see 
farther, we should see that nature could not be 
what she is unless she had owed her existence to 
an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the 
probability there is that an Intelligent Cause is 
unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
nature is only equal to the probability there is 
that the doctrine of the persistence of force is 
everywhere and eternally true. 

* As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we 
altogether quitted the region of experience, and 
ignoring even the very foundations of science, 
and so all the most certain of relative truths, we 
carried the discussion into the transcendental 
region of purely formal considerations. And here 
we laid down the canon, **that the value of any 
probability, in its last analysis, is determined by 
the number, the importance, and the definiteness 
of the relations known, as compared with those of 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 19 

the relations unknown ;** and, consequently, that 
in cases where the unknown relations are more 
numerous, more important, or more indefinite than 
are the known relations, the value of our inference 
varies inversely as the difference in these respects 
between the relations compared. From which 
canon it followed, that as the problem of Theism 
is the most ultimate of all problems, and so 
contains in its unknown relations all that is to man 
unknown and unknowable, these relations must be 
pronounced the most indefinite of all relations 
that it is possible for man to contemplate; and, 
consequently, that although we have here the 
entire range of experience from which to argue, 
we are unable to estimate the real value of any 
argument whatsoever. The unknown relations 
in our attempted mduction being wholly indefinite, 
both in respect of their number and importance, 
as compared with the known relations, it is 
impossible for us to determine any definite prob- 
ability either for or against the being of a God. 
Therefore, although it is true that, so far as human 
science can penetrate or human thought infer, we 
can perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no 
right on this account to conclude that there is no 
God. The probability, therefore, that nature is 
devoid of Deity while it is of the strongest kind 
if regarded scientifically — amounting, in fact, to 
a scientific demonstration — is nevertheless wholly 
worthless if regarded logically. Although it is 



20 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

as true as is the fundamental basis of all science 
and of all experience that, if there is a God, His 
existence, considered as a cause of the universe, 
is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if 
there had never been a God, the universe could 
never have existed. 

' Hence these formal considerations proved 
conclusively that, no matter how great the proba- 
bility of Atheism might appear to be in a relative 
sense, we have no means of estimating such 
probability in an absolute sense. From which 
position there emerged the possibility of another 
argument in favour of Theism — or rather, let us 
say, of a reappearance of the teleological argu- 
ment in another form. For, it may be said, seeing 
that these formal considerations exclude legiti- 
mate reasoning either for or against Deity in an 
absolute sense, while they do not exclude such 
reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet remain 
any theistic deductions which may properly be 
drawn from experience, these may now be 
adduced to balance the atheistic deductions from 
the persistence of force. For although the latter 
deductions have clearly shown the existence of 
Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the 
formal considerations in question have no less 
clearly opened up beyond the sphere of science a 
possible locus for the existence of Deity ; so that 
if there are any facts supplied by experience for 
which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 2 1 

to account, we are still free to account for them 
in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. 
And, it may be urged, we do find such an unex- 
plained residuum in the correlation of general 
laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It 
signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we 
are unable to conceive the methods whereby the 
supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic 
harmony ; nor does it signify that its operation 
must now be relegated to a super-scientific 
province. What does signify is that, taking a 
general view of nature, we find it impossible to 
conceive of the extent and variety of her har- 
monious processes as other than products of 
intelligent causation. Now this sublimated form of 
the teleological argument, it will be remembered, 
I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order 
sharply to distinguish it from all previous forms 
of that argument, which, in contradistinction, I 
denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinc- 
tion, it will be remembered, consisted in this — 
that while all previous forms of teleology, by 
resting on a basis which was not beyond the 
possible reach of science, laid themselves open to 
the possibility of scientific refutation, the meta- 
physical system of teleology, by resting on a 
basis which is clearly beyond the possible reach 
of science, can never be susceptible of scientific 
refutation. And that this metaphysical system of 
teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable ; 



2 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

for while it accepts the most ultimate truths of 
which science can ever be cognizant — viz. the 
persistence of force and the consequently neces- 
sary genesis of natural law — it nevertheless 
maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as 
the ultimate cause of things is not on this account 
removed ; and, therefore, that if science now 
requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be 
posited in a super-scientific sphere, then in a 
super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited. No 
doubt this hypothesis at first sight seems gratui- 
tous, seeing that, so far as science can penetrate, 
there is no need of any such hypothesis at all — 
cosmic harmony resulting as a physically neces- 
sary consequence from the combined action of 
natural laws, which in turn result as a physically 
necessary consequence of the persistence of force 
and the primary qualities of matter. But although 
it is thus indisputably true that metaphysical tele- 
ology is wholly gratuitous if considered scientific- 
ally, it may not be true that it is wholly gratui- 
tous if considered psychologically. In other words, 
if it is more conceivable that Mind should be the 
ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the 
persistence of force should be so, then it is not 
irrational to accept the more conceivable hypoth- 
esis in preference to the less conceivable one, pro- 
vided that the choice is made with the diffidence 
which is required by the considerations adduced 
in Chapter V [especially the Canon of probability 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 23 

laid down in the second paragraph of this section, 

§5]. 

*I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of 
metaphysical teleology, although in a physical 
sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense 
legitimate. But as against the fundamental posi- 
tion on which alone this argument can rest — viz. 
the position that the fundamental postulate of 
Atheism is more i?iconceivable than is the funda- 
mental postulate of Theism — we have seen two 
important objections to lie. 

' For, in the first place, the sense in which the 
word *' inconceivable" is here used is that of the 
impossibility of framing realizable relations in the 
thought ; not that of the impossibility of framing 
abstract relations in thought. In the same sense, 
though in a lower degree, it is true that the com- 
plexity 'of the human organization and its func- 
tions is inconceivable ; but in this sense the word 
*' inconceivable'* has much less weight in an 
argument than it has in its true sense. And, with- 
out waiting again to dispute (as we did in the case 
of the speculative standing of Materialism) how 
far even the genuine test of inconceivability ought 
to be allowed to make against an inference which 
there is a body of scientific evidence to substan- 
tiate, we went on to the second objection against 
this fundamental position of metaphysical tele- 
ology. This objection, it will be remembered, 
was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic 



24 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

harmony as an effect of Mind [i. e. Mind being 
what we know it in experience to be] as it is to 
conceive of it as an effect of mindless evolution. 
The argument from inconceivability, therefore, 
admits of being turned with quite as terrible an 
effect on Theism, as it can possibly be made to 
exert on Atheism. 

* Hence this more refined form of teleology 
which we are considering, and which we saw to 
be the last of the possible arguments in favour of 
Theism, is met on its own ground by a very crush- 
ing opposition : by its metaphysical character it 
has escaped the opposition of physical science, 
only to encounter a new opposition in the region 
of pure psychology to which it fled. As a con- 
clusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved 
on us to determine the relative magnitudes of these 
opposing forces. And in doing this we first ob- 
served that, if the supporters of metaphysical tele- 
ology objected a priori to the method whereby 
the genesis of natural law was deduced from the 
datum of the persistence of force, in that this 
method involved an unrestricted use of illegiti- 
mate symbolic conceptions ; then it is no less open 
to an atheist to object a priori to the method 
whereby a directing Mind was inferred from the 
datum of cosmic harmony, in that this method 
involved thepostulation of an unknowable cause, — 
and this of a character which the whole history 
of human thought has proved the human mind 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 25 

to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate 
as the cause of natural phenomena. On these 
grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as 
their respective standing a priori is concerned, 
both theories may be regarded as about equally 
suspicious. And similarly with regard to their 
standing ^2/^^^m^r/; for as both theories require 
to embody at least one infinite term, they must 
each alike be pronounced absolutely inconceiv- 
able. But, finally, if the question were put to me 
which of the two theories I regarded as the more 
rational, I observed that this is a question which 
no one man can answer for another. For as the 
test of absolute inconceivability is equally 
destructive of both theories, if a man wishes to 
choose between them, his choice can only be 
determined by what I have designated relative 
inconceivability — i.e. in accordance with the 
verdict given by his individual sense of probabil- 
ity as determined by his previous habit of thought. 
And forasmuch as the test of relative inconceiv- 
ability may be held in this matter legitimately to 
vary with the character of the mind which applies 
it, the strictly rational probability of the question 
to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or 
otherwise presented, the only alternative for any 
man in this matter is either to discipline himself 
into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to 
refuse in thought to entertain either a probability 
or an improbability concerning the existence of 



26 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

a God ; or else to incline in thought towards an 
affirmation or a negation of God, according as his 
previous habits of thought have rendered such 
an inclination more facile in the one direction than 
in the other. And although, under such circum- 
stances, I should consider that man the more 
rational who carefully suspended his judgment, 
I conclude that if this course is departed from, 
neither the metaphysical teleologist nor the scien- 
tific atheist has any perceptible advantage over 
the other in respect to rationality. For as the 
formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are 
undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the for- 
mal conditions of a speculative atheism are as 
undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus 
in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein 
the pendulum of thought is free to swing in which- 
ever direction it may be made to swing by the 
momentum of preconceived ideas. 

'§ 6. Such is the outcome of our investigation, 
and considering the abstract nature of the subject, 
the immense divergence of opinion which at the 
present time is manifested with regard to it, as 
well as the confusing amount of good, bad and 
mdifferent literature on both sides of the contro- 
versy which is extant ; — considering these things, 
I do not think that the result of our inquiry can 
be justly complained of on the score of its lack- 
ing precision. At a time like the present, when 
traditional beliefs respecting Theism are so 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 2^ 

generally accepted, and so commonly concluded 
as a matter of course to have a large and valid 
basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but 
feel that a perusal of this short essay, by showing 
how very concise the scientific status of the sub- 
ject really is, will do more to settle the minds of 
most readers as to the exact standing at the 
present time of all the probabilities of the 
question,. than could a perusal of all the rest of 
the literature upon this subject. And, looking to 
the present condition of speculative philosophy, 
I regard it as of the utmost importance to have 
clearly shown that the advance of science has 
now entitled us to assert, without the least hesita- 
tion, that the hypothesis of Mind in nature is as 
certainly superfluous to account for any of the 
phenomena of nature, as the scientific doctrine of 
the persistence of force and the indestructibility 
of matter is certainly true. 

*On the other hand, if any one is inclined to 
complain that the logical aspect of the question 
has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as 
has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, 
in any matter which does not admit of actual 
demonstration, some margin must of necessity be 
left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he 
bears this consideration in mind, I feel sure that he 
cannot properly complain of my not having done 
my utmost in this case to define as sharply as pos- 
sible the character and the limits of this margin. 



28 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

*§ 7. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is 
desirable to state that any antecedent bias with 
regard to Theism which I individually possess is 
unquestionably on the side of traditional beliefs. 
It is therefore with the utmost sorrow that I find 
myself compelled to accept the conclusions here 
worked out; and nothing would have induced me 
to publish them, save the strength of my convic- 
tion that it is the duty of every member of 
society to give his fellows the benefit of his 
labours for whatever they may be worth. Just as 
I am confident that truth must in the end be the 
most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded 
that every individual endeavour to attain it, pro- 
vided only that such endeavour is unbiased and 
sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the 
common property of all men, no matter in what 
direction the results of its promulgation may 
appear to tend. And so far as the ruination of 
individual happiness is concerned, no one can 
have a more lively perception than myself of the 
possibly disastrous tendency of my work. So far 
as I am individually concerned, the result of this 
analysis has been to show that, whether I regard 
the problem of Theism on the lower plane of 
strictly relative probability, or on the higher 
plane of purely formal considerations, it equally 
becomes my obvious duty to stifle all belief of the 
kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to 
discipline my intellect with regard to this matter 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 29 

into an attitude of the purest scepticism. And 
forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree 
with those who afifirm that the twilight doctrine 
of the "new faith" is a desirable substitute for 
the waning splendour of **the old," I am not 
ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation 
of God the universe to me has lost its soul of 
loveliness ; and although from henceforth the pre- 
cept to ''work while it is day" will doubtless but 
gain an intensified force from the terribly intensi- 
fied meaning of the words that ''the night cometh 
when no man can work," yet when at times I 
think, as think at times I must, of the appalling 
contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed 
which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of 
existence as now I find it, — at such times I shall 
ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang 
of which my nature is susceptible. For whether 
it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently 
advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or 
whether it be due to the memory of those sacred 
associations which to me at least were the sweet- 
est that life has given, I cannot but feel that for 
me, and for others who think as I do, there is a 
dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton, — 
Philosophy having become a meditation, not 
merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
know thyself has become transformed into the 
terrific oracle to CEdipus — 

"Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art." ' 



30 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

This analysis will have been at least sufficient 
to give a clear idea of the general argument of 
the Candid Examination and of its melancholy con- 
clusions. What will most strike a somewhat 
critical reader is perhaps ( i ) the tone of certainty, 
and (2) the belief in the almost exclusive right 
of the scientific method in the court of reason. 

As evidence of ( i ) I would adduce the follow- 
ing brief quotations : — 

P. xi. * Possible errors in reasoning apart, the 
rational position of Theism as here defined must 
remain without material modification as long as 
our intelligence remains human.* 

P. 24. ^I am quite unable to understand how 
any one at the present day, and with the most 
moderate powers of abstract thinking, can possibly 
bring himself to embrace the theory of Free-will.' 

P. 64. 'Undoubtedly we have no alternative 
but to conclude that the hypothesis of mind in 
nature is now logically proved to be as certainly 
superfluous as the very basis of all science is cer- 
tainly true. There can no longer be any more 
doubt that the existence of a God is wholly 
unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
the universe, than there is doubt that if I leave 
go of my pen it will fall upon the table.' 

As evidence of (2) I would adduce from the 
preface — 

'To my mind, therefore, it is impossible to 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 31 

resist the conclusion that, looking to this undoubted 
pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to 
truth, whether or not there is a God, the question 
as to his existence is both more morally and more 
reverently contemplated if we regard it purely as 
a problem for methodical analysis to solve, than 
if we regard it in any other light.' 

It is in respect both of (i) and (2) that the 
change in Romanes' thought as exhibited in his 
later Notes is most conspicuous.^ 

At what date George Romanes' mind began to 
react from the conclusions of the Candid Exam- 
ination I cannot say. But after a period of ten 
years — in his Rede lecture of 1885^ — we find 
his frame of mind very much changed. This 

"With reference to the views and arguments of the Caftdid 
Exajnmatiojt, it may be interesting to notice here in detail that 
George Romanes (i) came to attach much more importance to the 
subjective religious needs and intuitions of the human spirit (pp. 
131 ff.); (2) perceived that the subjective religious consciousness 
can be regarded objectively as a broad human phenomenon (pp. 
147 f.); (3) criticized his earlier theory of causation and returned 
towards WiQ theory that all causation is volitional (pp. 102, 118); 
(4) definitely repudiated the materialistic account of the origin of 
mind (pp. 30, 31); (5) returned to the use of the expression 'the 
argument from design,' and therefore presumably abandoned his 
strong objection to it; (6) 'saw through' Herbert Spencer's refu- 
tation of the wider teleology expressed by Baden Powell, and felt 
the force of the teleology again (p. 72); (7) recognized that the 
scientific objections to the doctrine of the freedom of the will are 
not finally valid (p. 128). 

=*See Contempora7'y Review, July, 1 885, p. 93. 



32 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

lecture, on Mind and Motion^ consists of a severe 
criticism of the materialistic account of mind. 
On the other hand * spiritualism' — or the theory 
which would suppose that mind is the cause of 
motion — is pronounced from the point of view 
of science not impossible indeed but * unsatisfac- 
tory/ and the more probable conclusion is found 
in a * monism' like Bruno's — according to which 
mind and motion are co-ordinate and probably 
co-extensive aspects of the same universal fact — 
a monism which may be called Pantheism, but 
may also be regarded as an extension of con- 
tracted views of Theism.^ The position repre- 
sented by this lecture may be seen sufficiently 
from its conclusion: — 

*If the advance of natural science is now 
steadily leading us to the conclusion that there is 
no motion without mind, must we not see how the 
independent conclusion of mental science is thus 
independently confirmed — the conclusion, I mean, 

^In some * Notes' of the Summer of 1893 I find the statement, 
* The result (of philosophical inquiry) has been that in his millen- 
nial contemplation and experience man has attained certainty with 
regard to certain aspects of the world problem, no less secure than 
that which he has gained in the domain of physical science, e. g. 
Logical priority of mind over matter. 
Consequent untenability of materialism. 
Relativity of knowledge. 

The order of nature, conservation of energy and indestructibility 
of matter within human experience, the principle of evolution 
and survival of the fittest.' 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 33 

that there is no being without knowing ? To me, 
at least, it does appear that the time has come 
when we may begin, as it were in a dawning light, 
to see that the study of Nature and the study of 
Mind are meeting upon this greatest of possible 
truths. And if this is the case — if there is no 
motion without mind, no beingwithout knowing — 
shall we infer, with Clifford, that universal being 
is mindless, or answer with a dogmatic negative 
that most stupendous of questions, — Is there 
knowledge with the Most High ? If there is no 
motion without mind, no being without knowing, 
may we not rather infer, with Bruno, that it is in 
the medium of mind, and in the medium of 
knowledge, we live, and move, and have our 
being ? 

*This, I think, is the direction in which the 
inference points, if we are careful to set out the 
logical conditions with complete impartiality. But 
the ulterior question remains, whether, so far as 
science is concerned, it is here possible to point 
any inference at all ; the whole orbit of human 
knowledge may be too narrow to afford a parallax 
for measurements so vast. Yet even here, if it be 
true that the voice of science must thus of neces- 
sity speak the language of agnosticism, at least 
let us see to it that the language is pure ; ^ let us 
not tolerate any barbarisms introduced from the 
side of aggressive dogma. So shall we find that 

^For the meaning of *pure' agnosticism see below, p. 113. 



34 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

this new grammar of thought does not admit of 
any constructions radically opposed to more ven- 
erable ways of thinking ; even if we do not find 
that the often-quoted words of its earliest formu- 
lator apply with special force to its latest dialects 
— that if a little knowledge of physiology and a 
little knowledge of psychology dispose men to 
atheism, a deeper knowledge of both, and, still 
more, a deeper thought upon their relations to 
one another, will lead men back to some form of 
religion, which if it be more vague, may also be 
more worthy than that of earlier days.* 

Some time before 1889 three articles were writ- 
ten for the Ni7ietee7ith Century on the Influence of 
Science upon Religioji. They were never published, 
for what reason I am not able to ascertain. But 
I have thought it worth while to print the first 
two of them as a * first part ' of this volume, both 
because they contain — written in George Romanes' 
own name — an important criticism upon the Can- 
did Examination which he had published anony- 
mously, and also because, with their entirely scep- 
tical result, they exhibit very clearly a stage in 
the mental history of their author. The antece- 
dents of these papers those who have read this 
Introduction will now be in a position to under- 
stand. What remains to be said by way of fur- 
ther introduction to the Notes had better be 
reserved till later. C. G. 



PART L 



35 



THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE 
UPON RELIGION. 

L 

I PROPOSE to consider, in a series of three 
papers, the influence of Science upon Religion. 
In doing this I shall seek to confine myself to the 
strictly rational aspect of the subject, without 
travelling into matters of sentiment. Moreover, 
I shall aim at estimating in the first instance the 
kind and degree of influence which has been 
exerted by Science upon Religion in the past, and 
then go on to estimate the probable extent of this 
influence in the future. The first two papers will 
be devoted to the past and prospective influence 
of Science upon Natural Religion, while the third 
will be devoted to the past and prospective influ- 
ence of Science upon Revealed Religion.' 

Few subjects have excited so much interest of 
late years as that which I thus mark out for dis- 
cussion. This can scarcely be considered a mat- 
ter of surprise, seeing that the influence in ques- 
tion is not only very direct, but also extremely 

' [The third paper is not published because Romanes' views 
on the relation between science and faith in Revealed Religion 
are better and more maturely expressed in the Notes. — Ed.] 

37 



38 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

important from every point of view. For genera- 
tions and for centuries in succession Religion 
maintained an undisputed sway over men's minds 
— if not always as a practical guide in matters of 
conduct, at least as a regulator of belief. Even 
among the comparatively few who in previous 
centuries professedly rejected Christianity, there 
can be no doubt that their intellectual conceptions 
were largely determined by it : for Christianity 
being then the only court of appeal with reference 
to all these conceptions, even the few minds which 
were professedly without its jurisdiction could 
scarcely escape its indirect influence through the 
minds of others. But as side by side with the 
venerable institution a new court of appeal was 
gradually formed, we cannot wonder that it should 
have come to be regarded in the light of a rival 
to the old — more especially as the searching 
methods of its inquiry and the certain character 
of its judgments were much more in consonance 
with the requirements of an age disposed to scep- 
ticism. And this spirit of rivalry is still further 
fostered by the fact that Science has unquestion- 
ably exerted upon Religion what Mr. Fiske terms 
a * purifying influence.' That is to say, not only 
are the scientific methods of inquiry after truth 
more congenial to sceptical minds than are the 
religious methods (which may be broadly defined 
as accepting truth on authority), but the results of 
the former have more than once directly contra- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 39 

dieted those of the latter: science has in several 
cases incontestably demonstrated that religious 
teaching has been wrong as to matters of fact. 
Further still, the great advance of natural knowl- 
edge which has characterized the present century, 
has caused our ideas upon many subjects con- 
nected with philosophy to undergo a complete 
metamorphosis. A well-educated man of the 
present day is absolutely precluded from regard- 
ing some of the Christian dogmas from the same 
intellectual standpoint as his forefathers, even 
though he may still continue to accept them in 
some other sense. In short, our whole key of 
thinking or tone of thought having been in cer- 
tain respects changed, we can no longer anticipate 
that in these respects it should continue to har- 
monize with the unalterable system of theology. 
Such I conceive to be the ways in which 
Science has exerted her influence upon Religion, 
and it is needless to dwell upon the potency of 
their united effect. No one can read even a 
newspaper without perceiving how great this 
effect has been. On the one hand, sceptics are 
triumphantly confident that the light of dawning 
knowledge has begun finally to dispel the darkness 
of superstition, while religious persons, on the 
other hand, tremble to think what the future, if 
judged by the past, is likely to bring forth. On 
both sides we have free discussion, strong lan- 
guage, and earnest canvassing. Year by year stock 



40 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

is taken, and year by year the balance is found 
to preponderate in favour of Science. 

This being the state of things of the present 
time, I think that with the experience of the kind 
and degree of influence which Science has exerted 
upon Religion in the past, we have material 
enough whereby to estimate the probable extent 
of such influence in the future. This, therefore, 
I shall endeavour to do by seeking to define, on 
general principles, the limits within which it is 
antecedently possible that the influence in question 
can be exercised. But in order to do this, it is 
necessary to begin by estimating the kind and 
degree of the influence which has been exerted by 
Science upon Religion in the past. 

Thus much premised, we have in the first place 
to define the essential nature both of Science and 
of Religion : for this is clearly the first step in an 
analysis which has for its object an estimation of 
the actual and possible effects of one of these 
departments of thought upon the other. 

Science, then, is essentially a department of 
thought having exclusive reference to the Proxi- 
mate. More particularly, it is a department of 
thought having for its object the explanation of 
natural phenomena by the discovery of natural 
(or proximate) causes. In so far as Science 
ventures to trespass beyond this her only legiti- 
mate domain, and seeks to interpret natural 
phenomena by the immediate agency of super- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 41 

natural or ultimate causes, in that degree has she 
ceased to be physical science, and become onto- 
logical speculation. The truth of this statement 
has now been practically recognized by all 
scientific workers ; and terms describing final 
causes have been banished from their vocabulary 
in astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and 
even in psychology. 

Religion, on the other hand, is a department 
of thought having no less exclusive reference to 
the Ultimate. More particularly, it is a depart- 
ment of thought having for its object a self- 
conscious and intelligent Being, which it regards 
as a personal God, and the fountain-head of all 
causation. I am, of course, aware that the term 
Religion has been of late years frequently used 
in senses which this definition would not cover ; 
but I conceive that this only shows how frequently 
the term in question has been abused. To call 
any theory of things a Religion which does not 
present any belief in any form of Deity, is to 
apply the word to the very opposite of that which 
it has hitherto been used to denote. To speak of 
the Religion of the Unknowable, the Religion of 
Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity, and so forth, 
where the personality of the First Cause is not 
recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to 
speak of the love of a triangle, or the rationality 
of the equator. That is to say, if any meaning is 
to be extracted from the terms at all, it is only to 



42 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

be SO by using them in some metaphorical sense. 
We may, for instance, say that there is such a 
thing as a Religion of Humanity, because we may 
begin by deifying Humanity in our own estima- 
tion, and then go on to worship our ideal. But 
by thus giving Humanity the name of Deity we 
are not really creating a new religion : we are 
merely using a metaphor, which may or may not 
be successful as a matter of poetic diction, but 
which most assuredly presents no shred of value 
as a matter of philosophical statement. Indeed, 
in this relation it is worse than valueless : it is 
misleading. Variations or reversals in the mean- 
ings of words are not of uncommon occurrence in 
the ordinary growth of languages ; but it is not 
often that we find, as in this case, the whole mean- 
ing of a term intentionally and gratuitously 
changed by the leaders of philosophical thought. 
Humanity, for example, is an abstract idea of our 
own making : it is not an object any more than 
the equator is an object. Therefore, if it were 
possible to construct a religion by this curious 
device of metaphorically ascribing to Humanity 
the attributes of Deity, it ought to be as logically 
possible to construct, let us say, a theory of 
brotherly regard towards the equator, by meta- 
phorically ascribing to it the attributes of man. 
The distinguishing features of any theory which 
can properly be termed a Religion, is that it 
should refer to the ultimate source, or sources of 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 43 

things : and that it should suppose this source to 
be of an objective, intelligent, and personal 
nature. To apply the term Religion to any other 
theory is merely to abuse it. 

From these definitions, then, it appears that 
the aims and methods of Science are exclusively 
concerned with the ascertaining and the proof of 
the proximate How of things and processes 
physical : her problem is, as Mill states it, to 
discover what are the fewest number of (phe- 
nomenal) data which, being granted, will explain 
the phenomena of experience. On the other 
hand, Religion is not in any way concerned with 
causation, further than to assume that all things 
and all processes are ultimately due to intelligent 
personality. Religion is thus, as Mr. Spencer 
says, ' an a priori theory of the universe' — to 
which, however, we must add, * and a theory which 
assumes intelligent personality as the originating 
source of the universe.' Without this needful 
addition, a religion would be in no way logically 
distinguished from a philosophy. 

From these definitions, then, it clearly follows 
that in their purest forms. Science and Religion 
really have no point of logical contact. Only if 
Science could transcend the conditions of space 
and time, of phenomenal relativity, and of all 
human limitations, only then could Science be in 
a position to touch the supernatural theory of 
Religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, 



44 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

she would cease to be Science. In soaring above 
the region of phenomena and entering the tenuous 
aether of noumena, her present wings, which we 
call her methods, would in such an atmosphere be 
no longer of any service for movement. Out of 
time, out of place, and out of phenomenal relation, 
Science could no longer exist as such. 

On the other hand. Religion in its purest form 
is equally incompetent to affect Science. For, as 
we have already seen. Religion as such is not con- 
cerned with the phenomenal sphere : her theory 
of ontology cannot have any reference to the How 
of phenomenal causation. Hence it is evident 
that, as in their purest or most ideal forms they 
move in different mental planes, Science and 
Religion cannot exhibit interference. 

Thus far the remarks which I have made apply 
equally to all forms of Religion, as such, whether 
actual or possible, and in so far as the Religion is 
pure. But it is notorious that until quite recently 
Religion did exercise, upon Science, not only an 
influence, but an overpowering influence. Belief 
in divine agency being all but universal, while the 
methods of scientific research had not as yet been 
distinctly formulated, it was in previous genera- 
tions the usual habit of mind to refer any natural 
phenomenon, the physical causation of which had 
not been ascertained, to the more or less imme- 
diate causal action of the Deity. But we now see 
that this habit of mind arose from a failure to 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 45 

distinguish between the essentially distinct char- 
acters of Science and Religion as departments of 
thought, and therefore that it was only so far as 
the Religion of former times was impure — or 
mixed with the ingredients of thought which 
belong to Science — that the baleful influence in 
question was exerted. The gradual, successive, 
and now all but total abolition of final causes from 
the thoughts of scientific men, to which allusion 
has already been made, is merely an expression of 
the fact that scientific men as a body have come 
fully to recognize the fundamental distinction 
between Science and Religion which I have stated. 
Or, to put the matter in another way, scientific 
men as a body — and, indeed, all persons whose 
ideas on such matters are abreast of the times — 
perceive plainly enough that a religious explana- 
tion of any natural phenomenon is, from a scien- 
tific point of view, no explanation at all. For a 
religious explanation consists in referring the 
observed phenomenon to the First Cause — i. e. to 
merge that particular phenomenon in the general 
or final mystery of things. A scientific explana- 
tion, on the other hand, consists in referring the 
observed phenomenon to its physical causes, and 
in no case can such an explanation entertain the 
hypothesis of a final cause without abandoning its 
character as a scientific explanation. For example, 
if a child brings me a flower and asks why it has 
such a curious form, bright colour, sweet perfume, 



46 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

and so on, and if I answer, Because God made it 
so, I am not really answering the child's question : 
I am merely concealing my ignorance of Nature 
under a guise of piety, and excusing my indolence 
in the study of botany. It was the appreciation 
of this fact that led Mr. Darwin to observe in his 
Origiii of Species that the theory of creation does 
not serve to explain any of the facts with which it 
is concerned, but merely re-states these facts as 
they are observed to occur. That is to say, by 
thus merging the facts as observed into the final 
mystery of things, we are not even attempting to 
explain them in any scientific sense : for it would 
be obviously possible to get rid of the necessity 
of thus explaining any natural phenomenon what- 
soever by referring it to the immediate causal 
action of the Deity. If any phenomenon were 
actually to occur which did proceed from the 
immediate causal action of the Deity, then ex 
hypothesis there would be no physical causes to 
investigate, and the occupation of Othello, in the 
person of a man of science, would be gone. Such 
a phenomenon would be miraculous, and therefore 
from its very nature beyond the reach of scientific 
investigation. 

Properly speaking, then, the religious theory of 
final causes does not explain any of the phenomena 
of Nature: it merely re-states the phenomena as 
observed — or, if we prefer so to say, it is itself an 
ultimate and universal explanation of all possible 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 47 

phenomena taken collectively. For it must be 
admitted that behind all possible explanations of a 
scientific kind, there lies a great inexplicable, which 
just because of its ultimate character, cannot be 
merged into anything further — that is to say, 
cannot be explained. * It is what it is,' is all that 
we can say of it : 'I am that I am ' is all that it 
could say of itself. And it is in referring phe- 
nomena to this inexplicable source of physical 
causation that the theory of Religion essentially 
consists. The theory of Science, on the other hand, 
consists in the assumption that there is alwa3^s 
a practically endless chain of physical causation to 
investigate — i. e. an endless series of phenomena 
to be explained. So that, if we define the process 
of explanation as the process of referring observed 
phenomena to their adequate causes, we may say 
that Religion, by the aid of a general theory of 
things in the postulation of an intelligent First 
Cause, furnishes to her own satisfaction an ulti- 
mate explanation of the universe as a whole, and 
therefore is not concerned with any of those proxi- 
mate explanations or discovery of second causes 
which form the exclusive subject-matter of Science. 
In other words, we recur to the definitions already 
stated, to the effect that Religion is a department 
of thought having, as such, exclusive reference to 
the Ultimate, while Science is a department of 
thought having, as such, no less exclusive reference 
to the Proximate. When these tv/o departments 



48 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of thought overlap, interference results, and we 
find confusion. Therefore it was that when the 
religious theory of final causes intruded upon the 
field of scientific inquiry, it was passing beyond its 
logical domain ; and seeking to arrogate the func- 
tion of explaining this or that phenomenon in 
detail^ it ceased to be a purely religious theory, 
while at the same time and for the same reason 
it blocked the way of scientific progress.^ 

This remark serves to introduce one of the chief 
topics with which I have to deal — viz. the doc- 
trine of Design in Nature, and thus the whole 
question of Natural Religion in its relation to 
Natural Science. In handling this topic I shall 
endeavor to take as broad and deep a view as I 
can of the present standing of Natural Religion, 
without waiting to show step by step the ways and 
means by which it has been brought into this 
position, by the influence of Science. 

In the earliest dawn of recorded thought, 
teleology in some form or another has been the 
most generally accepted theory whereby the 
order of Nature is explained. It is not, however, 

'To avoid misunderstanding I may observe that in the above 
definitions I am considering Religion and Science under the con- 
ditions in which they actually exist. It is conceivable that under 
other conditions these two departments of thought might not be 
so sharply separated. Thus, for instance, if a Religion were to 
appear carrying a revelation to Science upon matters of physical 
causation, such a Religion (supposing the revelation were found 
by experiment to be true) ought to be held to exercise upon 
Science a strictly legitimate influence. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 49 

my object in this paper to trace the history of 
this theory from its first rude beginnings in 
Fetichism to its final development in Theism. I 
intend to devote myself exclusively to the ques- 
tion as to the present standing of this theory, 
and I allude to its past history only in order to 
examine the statement which is frequently made, 
to the effect that its general prevalence in all ages 
and among all peoples of the world lends to it a 
certain degree of 'antecedent credibility/ With 
reference to this point, I should say, that, whether 
or not the order of Nature is clue to a disposing 
Mind, the hypothesis of mental agency in Nature 
— or, as the Duke of Argyll terms it, the hypoth- 
esis of * anthropopsychism ' — must necessarily 
have been the earliest hypothesis. What we find 
in Nature is the universal prevalence of causation, 
and long before the no less universal equivalency 
between causes and effects — i. e. the universal 
prevalence of natural law — became a matter of 
even the [vaguest] appreciation, the general fact 
that nothing happens without a cause of some 
kind was fully recognized. Indeed, the recogni- 
tion of this fact is not only presented by the lowest 
races of the present day, but, as I have myself 
given evidence to show, likewise by animals and 
infants.^ And therefore, it appears to me probable 
that those psychologists are right who argue that 
the idea of cause is intuitive, in the same sense 

^Mental Evolution in Anhnals^ pp. ISS^^* 



50 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

that the ideas of space and time are intuitive — 
i. e. the instinctive or [inherited] effect of ances- 
tral experience. 

Now if it is thus a matter of certainty that 
the recognition of causality in Nature is co-exten- 
sive with, and even anterior to, the human mind, 
it appears to me no less certain that the first 
attempt at assigning a cause to this or that observed 
event in Nature — i. e. the first attempts at a 
rational explanation of the phenomena of Nature 
— must have been of an anthropopsychic kind. 
No other explanation was, as it were, so ready to 
hand as that of projecting into external Nature 
the agency of volition, which was known to each 
individual as the apparent fountain-head of causal 
activity so far as he and his neighbors were con- 
cerned. To reach this most obvious explanation 
of causality in Nature, it did not require that 
primitive man should know, as we know, that the 
very conception of causality arises out of our 
sense of effort in voluntary action ; it only required 
that this should be the fact, and then it must 
needs follow that when any natural phenomenon 
was thought about at all with reference to its 
causality, the cause should be one of a psychical 
kind. I need not wait to trace the gradual inte- 
gration of this anthropopsychic hypothesis from 
its earliest and most diffused form of what we 
may term polypsychism (wherein the causes 
inferred were almost as personally numerous as 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 51 

the effects contemplated), through polytheism 
(wherein many effects of a like kind were 
referred to one deity, who, as it were, took spe- 
cial charge over that class), up to monotheism 
(wherein all causation is gathered up into the 
monopsychism of a single personality): it is 
enough thus briefly to show that from first to last 
the hypothesis of anthropopsychism is a neces- 
sary phase of mental evolution under existing 
conditions, and this whether or not the hypothesis 
is true. 

Thus viewed, I do not think that *the general 
consent of mankind' is a fact of any argumenta- 
tive weight in favour of the anthropopsychic 
theory — so far, I mean, as the matter of causa- 
tion is concerned — vv^hether this be in fetichism 
or in the teleology of our own day : the general 
consent of mankind in the larger question of the- 
ism (where sundr}^ other matters besides causa- 
tion fall to be considered) does not here concern 
us. Indeed, it appears to me that if we are to 
go back to the savages for any guarantee of our 
anthropopsychic theory, the pledge which we 
receive is of worse than no value. As well might 
we conclude that a match is a living organism, 
because this is to the mind of a savage the most 
obvious explanation of its movements, as con- 
clude on precisely similar grounds that our belief 
in teleology derives any real support from any of 
the more primitive phases of anthropopsychism. 



52 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

It seems to me, therefore, that in seeking to 
estimate the evidence of design in Nature, we 
must as it were start de novo, without reference to 
anterior beliefs upon the subject. The question 
is essentially one to be considered in the light of 
all the latest knowledge that we possess, and by 
the best faculties of thinking that we (the heirs 
of all the ages) are able to bring to bear upon it. 
I shall, therefore, only allude to the history of 
anthropopsychism in so far as I may find it neces- 
sary to do so for the sake of elucidating my 
argument. 

And here it is needful to consider first what 
Paley called 'the state of the argument' before 
the Darwinian epoch. This is clearly and tersely 
presented by Paley in his classical illustration of 
finding a watch upon a heath — an illustration so 
well known that I need not here re-state it. I 
will merely observe, therefore, that it conveys, as 
it were in one's watch-pocket, the whole of the 
argument from design ; and that it is not in my 
opinion open to the stricture which was passed 
upon it by Mill where he says, — 'The inference 
would not be from marks of design, but because 
I already know by direct experience that watches 
are made by men.* This appears to me to miss 
the whole point of Paley's meaning, for there 
would be obviously no argument at all unless he 
be understood to mean that the evidence of 
design which is supposed to be afforded by 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 53 

examination of the watch, is supposed to be 
afforded by this examination only, and not from 
any of the direct knowledge alluded to by Mill. 
For the purposes of the illustration, it must clearly 
be assumed that the finder of the watch has no 
previous or direct knowledge touching the manu- 
facture of watches. Apart from this curious mis- 
understanding, Mill was at one with Paley upon 
the whole subject. 

Again, it is no real objection to the argument 
or illustration to say, as we often have said, that 
it does not account for the watchmaker. The 
object of the argument from design is to prove 
the existence of a designer : not to explaiii that 
existence. Indeed, it would be suicidal to 
the whole argument in its relation to Theism, if 
the possibility of any such explanation were 
entertained ; for such a possibility could only be 
entertained on the supposition that the being of 
the Deity admits of being explained — i. e. that 
the Deity is not ultimate. 

Lastly, the argument is precisely the same as 
that which occurs in numerous passages of Scrip- 
ture and in theological writings all over the world 
down to the present time. That is to say, every- 
where in organic nature we meet with innumerable 
adaptations of means to ends, which in very many 
cases present a degree of refinement and com- 
plexity in comparison with which the adaptations 
of means to ends in a watch are but miserable 



54 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

and rudimentary attempts at mechanism. No one 
can know so well as the modern biologist in 
what an immeasurable degree the mechanisms 
which occur in such profusion in nature surpass, 
in every form of excellence, the highest triumphs 
of human invention. Hence at first sight it does 
unquestionably appear that we could have no 
stronger or better evidence of purpose than is 
thus afforded. In the words of Paley : * arrange- 
ment, disposition of parts, subserviency of means 
to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply 
the presence of intelligence and mind.* 

But next the question arises. Although such 
things certainly [may]^ imply the presence of 
mind as their explanatory cause, are we entitled 
to assume that there can be in nature no other 
cause competent to produce these effects ? This 
is a question which never seems to have occurred 
to Paley, Bell, Chalmers, or indeed to any of the 
natural theologians up to the time of Darwin. 
This, I think, is a remarkable fact, because the 
question is one which, as a mere matter of logical 
form, appears to lie so much upon the surface. 
But nevertheless the fact remains that natural 
theologians, so far as I know without exception, 
were satisfied to assume as an axiom that mechan- 
ism could have no cause other than that of a 
designing mind ; and therefore their work was 

* [I have put *may * in place of *do ' for the sake of argument. 
—Ed.] 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 55 

restricted to tracing out in detail the number and 
the excellency of the mechanisms which were to be 
met with in nature. It is, however, obvious that 
the mere accumulation of such cases can have no 
real, or logical, effect upon the argument. The 
mechanisms which we encounter in nature are so 
amazing in their perfections, that the attentive 
study of any one of them would (as Paley in his 
illustration virtually, though not expressly, con- 
tends) be sufficient to carry the whole position, 
if the assumption be conceded that mechanism 
can only be due to mind. Therefore the argu- 
ment is not really, or logically, strengthened by 
the mere accumulation of any number of special 
cases of mechanism in nature, all as mechanisms 
similar in kind. Let us now consider this argu- 
ment. 

If we are disposed to wonder why natural 
theologians prior to the days of Darwin were 
content to assume that mind is the only possible 
cause of mechanism, I think we have a ready 
answer in the universal prevalence of their belief 
in special creation. For I think it is unquestion- 
able that, upon the basis of this belief, the assump- 
tion is legitimate. That is to say, if we start with 
the belief that all species of plants and anim.als 
were originally introduced to the complex con- 
ditions of their several environments suddenly 
and ready made (in some such manner as watches 
are turned out from a manufactory), then I think 



56 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

we are reasonably entitled to assume that no con- 
ceivable cause, other than that of intelligent pur- 
pose, could possibly be assigned in explanation 
of the effects. It is, of course, needless to observe 
that in so far as this previous belief in special 
creation was thus allowed to affect the argument 
from design, that argument became an instance of 
circular reasoning. And it is, perhaps, equally 
needless to observe that the mere fact of evolution, 
as distinguished from special creation — or of the 
gradual development of living mechanisms, as 
distinguished from their sudden and ready-made 
apparition — would not in any way affect the 
argument from design, unless it could be shown 
that the process of evolution admits the possibil- 
ity of some other cause which is not admitted 
by the hypothesis of special creation. But this 
is precisely what is shown by the theory of evolu- 
tion as propounded by Darwin. That is to say, 
the theory of the gradual development of living 
mechanisms propounded by Darwin, is something 
more than a theory of gradual development as 
distinguished from sudden creation. It is this, 
but it is also a theory of a purely scientific kind 
which seeks to explain the purely physical causes 
of that development. And this is the point where 
natural science begins to exert her influence upon 
natural theology — or the point where the theory 
of evolution begins to affect the theory of design. 
As this is a most important part of our subject, 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 5? 

and one upon which an extraordinary amount of 
confusion at the present time prevails, I shall in 
my next paper carefully consider it in all its 
bearings. 



II. 

Suppose the man who found the watch upon 
a heath to continue his walk till he comes down to 
the sea-shore, and suppose further that he is as 
ignorant of physical geography as he is of watch- 
making. He soon begins to observe a number 
of adaptations of means to ends, which, if less 
refined and delicate than those that formed the 
object of his study in the watch, are on the other 
hand much more impressive from the greatly 
larger scale on which they are displayed. First, 
he observes that there is a beautiful basin hollowed 
out in the land for the reception of a bay ; that 
the sides of this basin, which from being near its 
opening are most exposed to the action of large 
rolling billows, are composed of rocky cliffs, 
evidently in order to prevent the further encroach- 
ment of the sea, and the consequent destruction 
of the entire bay; that the sides of the basin, 
which from being successively situated more inland 
are successively less and less exposed to the action 
of large waves, are constituted successively of 
smaller rocks, passing into shingle, and eventually 
into the finest sand : that as the tides rise and fall 
with as great regularity as was exhibited by the 
movements of the watch, the stones are carefully 

58 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 59 

separated out from the sand to be arranged in 
sloping layers of themselves, and this always 
with a most beautiful reference to the places round 
the margin of the basin which are most in danger 
of being damaged by the action of the waves. He 
would further observe, upon closer inspection, that 
this process of selective arrangement goes into 
matters of the most minute detail. Here, for 
instance, he would observe a mile or two of a 
particular kind of seaweed artistically arranged in 
one long sinuous line upon the beach ; there he 
would see a wonderful deposit of shells ; in another 
place a lovely little purple heap of garnet sand, the 
minute particles of which have all been carefully 
picked out from the surrounding acres of yellow 
sand. Again, he would notice that the streams 
which come down to the bay are all flowing in 
channels admirably dug out for the purpose ; and, 
being led by curiosity to investigate the teleology 
of these various streams, he would find that they 
serve to supply the water which the sea loses by 
evaporation, and also, by a wonderful piece of 
adjustment, to furnish fresh water to those animals 
and plants which thrive best in fresh water, and 
yet by their combined action to carry down suffi- 
cient mineral constituents to give that precise 
degree of saltness to the sea as a whole which 
is required for the maintenance of a pelagic life. 
Lastly, continuing his investigations along this 
line of inquiry, he would find that a thousand 



6o THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

different habitats were all thoughtfully adapted 
to the needs of a hundred thousand different forms 
of life, none of which could survive if these 
habitats were reversed. Now, I think that our 
imaginary inquirer would be a dull man if, as the 
result of all this study, he failed to conclude that 
the evidence of Design furnished by the marine 
bay was at least as cogent as that which he had 
previously found in his study of the watch. 

But there is this great difference between the 
two cases. Whereas by subsequent inquiry he 
could ascertain as a matter of fact that the watch 
was due to intelligent contrivance, he could make 
no such discovery with reference to the marine 
bay : in the one case intelligent contrivance as a 
cause is independently demonstrable, while in the 
other case it can only be inferred. What, then, 
is the value of the inference? 

If, after the studies of our imaginary teleolo- 
gist had been completed, he were introduced to 
the library of the Royal Society, and if he were 
then to spend a year or two in making himself 
acquainted with the leading results of modern 
science, I fancy that he would end by being both 
a wiser and a sadder man. At least I am certain 
that in learning more he would feel that he is 
understanding less — that the archaic simplicity 
of his earlier explanations must give place to a 
matured perplexity upon the whole subject. To 
begin with, he would now find that every one of 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 6 1 

the adjustments of means to ends which excited 
his admiration on the sea-coast were due to phys- 
ical causes which are perfectly well understood. 
The cliffs stood at the opening of the bay because 
the sea in past ages had encroached upon the 
coast-line until it met with these cliffs, which then 
opposed its further progress ; the bay was a 
depression in the land which happened to be there 
when the sea arrived, and into which the sea con- 
sequently flowed ; the successive occurrence of 
rocks, shingle, and sand was due to the actions 
of the waves themselves ; the segregation of sea- 
weeds, shells, pebbles, and different kinds of 
sand, was due to their different degrees of specific 
gravity ; the fresh-water streams ran in channels 
because they had themselves been the means of 
excavating them ; and the multitudinous forms 
of life were all adapted to their several habitats 
simply because the unsuited forms were not able 
to live in them. In all these cases, therefore, our 
teleologist in the light of fuller knowledge would 
be compelled to conclude at least this much — that 
the adaptations which he had so greatly admired 
when he supposed that they were all due to con- 
trivance in anticipation of the existing phenomena, 
cease to furnish the same evidence of intelligent 
design when it is found that no one of them 
was prepared beforehand by any independent or 
external cause. 

He would therefore be led to conclude that if 



62 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the teleological interpretation of the facts were to 
be saved at all, it could only be so by taking a 
much wider view of the subject than was afforded 
by the particular cases of apparent design which 
at first appeared so cogent. That is to say, he 
would feel that he must abandon the supposition 
of any special design in the construction of that 
particular bay, and fall back upon the theory of 
a much more general design in the construction of 
one great scheme of Nature as a whole. In short 
he would require to dislodge his argument from 
the special adjustments which in the first instance 
appeared to him so suggestive, to those general 
laws of Nature which by their united operation 
give rise to a cosmos as distinguished from a 
chaos. 

Now I have been careful thus to present in all 
its more important details an imaginary argument 
drawn from inorganic nature, because it furnishes 
a complete analogy to the actual argument which 
is drawn from organic nature. Without any ques- 
tion, the instances of apparent design, or of the 
apparently intentional adaptation of means to 
ends, which we meet with in organic nature, are 
incomparably more numerous and suggestive than 
anything with which we meet in inorganic nature. 
But if once we find good reason to conclude that 
the former, like the latter, are all due, not to the 
immediate, special and prospective action of a 
contriving intelligence (as in watch-making or 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 63 

creation), but to the agency of Secondary or phys- 
ical causes acting under the influence of what we 
call general laws, then it seems to me that no 
matter how numerous or how wonderful the adap- 
tations of means to ends in organic nature may 
be, they furnish one no other or better evidence 
of design than is furnished by any of the facts of 
inorganic nature. 

For the sake of clearness let us take any special 
case. Paley says, * I know of no better method of 
introducing so large a subject than that of com- 
paring a single thing with a single thing ; an eye, 
for example, with a telescope/ He then goes 
on to point out the analogies between these two 
pieces of apparatus, and ends by asking, * How 
is it possible, under -circumstances of such close 
affinity, and under the operation of equal evidence, 
to exclude contrivance in the case of the eye, yet 
to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having 
been employed, as the plainest and clearest of all 
propositions in the case of the telescope?' 

Well, the answer to be made is that only upon 
the hypothesis of special creation can this analogy 
hold : on the hypothesis of evolution by physical 
causes the evidence in the two cases is not equal. 
For, upon this hypothesis we have the eye begin- 
ning, not as a ready-made structure prepared 
beforehand for the purposes of seeing, but as a 
mere differentiation of the ends of nerves in the 
skin, probably in the first instance to enable them 



64 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

better to discriminate changes of temperature. 
Pigment having been laid down in these places 
the better to secure this purpose (I use teleologi- 
cal terms for the sake of brevity) , the nerve-ending 
begins to distinguish between light and darkness. 
The better to secure this further purpose the sim- 
plest conceivable form of lens begins to appear 
in the shape of small refractive bodies. Behind 
these sensory cells are developed, forming the 
earliest indication of a retina presenting a single 
layer. And so on, step by step, till we reach the 
eye of an eagle. 

Of course the teleologist will here answer — 
*The fact of such a gradual building up is no 
argument against design : whether the structure 
appeared on a sudden or was the result of a slow 
elaboration, the marks of design in either case 
occur in the structure as it stands.' All of which 
is very true ; but I am not maintaining that the 
fact of a gradual development i?i itself does affect 
the argument from design. I am maintaining 
that it only does so because it reveals the possi- 
bility (excluded by the hypothesis of sudden or 
special creation) of the structure having been 
proximately due to the operation of physical 
causes. Thus, for the value of argument, let us 
assume that natural selection has been satisfac- 
torily established as a cause adequate to account 
for all these effects. Given the facts of heredity, 
variation, struggle for existence, and the conse- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 65 

qiient survival of the fittest, what follows ? Why 
that each step in the prolonged and gradual 
development of the eye was brought about by the 
elimination of all the less adapted structures in 
any given generation, i. e. the selection of all the 
better adapted to perpetuate the improvement of 
heredity. Will the teleologist maintain that this 
selective process is itself indicative of special 
design ? If so, it appears to me that he is logi- 
cally bound to maintain that the long line of sea- 
weed, the shells, the stones and the little heap of 
garnet sand upon the sea-coast are all equally 
indicative of special design. The general laws 
relating to specific gravity are at least of as much 
importance in the economy of nature as are the 
general laws relating to specific differentiation ; 
and in each illustration alike we find the result 
of the operation of known physical causes to be 
that of selection. If it should be argued in reply 
that the selection in the one case is obviously 
purposeless, w^hile in the other it is as obviously 
purposive, I answer that this is pure assumption. 
It is perhaps not too much to say that every 
geological formation on the face of the globe is 
either wholly or in part due to the selective infl^u- 
ence of specific gravity, and who shall say that the 
construction of the earth's crust is a less important 
matter in the general scheme of things (if there is 
such a scheme) than is the evolution of an eye ? 
Or who shall say that because we see an appar- 



66 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

ently intentional adaptation of means to ends as 
the result of selection in the case of the eye, there 
is no intention served by the result of selection 
in the case of the sea-weeds, stones, sand, mud ? 
For anything that we can know to the contrary, 
the supposed intelligence may take a greater 
delight in the latter than in the former process. 
For the sake of clearness I have assumed that 
the physical causes with which we are already 
acquainted are sufificient to explain the observed 
phenomena of organic nature. But it clearly 
makes no difference whether or not this assump- 
tion is conceded, provided we allow that the 
observed phenomena are all due to physical causes 
of some kind, be they known or unknown. That 
is to say, in whatever measure we exclude the 
hypothesis of the direct or immediate intervention 
of the Deity in organic nature (miracle), in that 
measure we are reducing the evidence of design 
in organic nature to precisely the same logical 
position as that which is occupied by the evidence 
of design in organic nature. Hence I conceive 
that Mill has shown a singular want of penetra- 
tion where, after observing with reference to 
natural selection, * creative forethought is not 
absolutely the only link by which the origin of 
the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be con- 
nected with the fact of sight,' he goes on to say, 
* leaving this remarkable speculation (i. e. that of 
natural selection) to whatever fate the progress 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 67 

of discovery may have in store for it, in the pres- 
ent state of knowledge the adaptations in nature 
afford a large balance of probability in favor of 
creation by intelligence/ I say this passage 
seems to me to show a singular want of penetra- 
tion, and I say so because it appears to argue that 
the issue lies between the hypothesis of special 
design and the hypothesis of natural selection. 
But it does not do so. The issue really lies 
between special design and natural causes. Sur- 
vival of the fittest is one of these causes which 
has been suggested, and shown by a large accu- 
mulation of evidence to be probably a true cause. 
But even if it were to be disproved as a cause, 
the real argumentative position of teleology would 
not thereby be effected, unless we were to con- 
clude that there can be no other causes of a 
secondary or physical kind concerned in the pro- 
duction of the observed adaptations. 

I trust that I have now made it sufficiently 
clear why I hold that if we believe the reign of 
natural law, or the operation of physical causes, 
to extend throughout organic nature in the same 
universal manner as we believe this in the case of 
inorganic nature, then we can find no better evi- 
dence of design in the one province than in the 
other. The mere fact that we meet with more 
numerous and apparently more complete instances 
of design in the one province than in the other is, ex 
hypothesi, merely due to our ignorance of the nat- 



68 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

ural causation in the more intricate province. In 
studying biological phenomena we are all at pres- 
ent in the intellectual position of our imaginary 
teleologist when studying the marine bay : we do 
not know the natural causes which have produced 
the observed results. But if, after having obtained 
a partial key in the theory of natural selection, 
we trust to the large analogy which is afforded 
by the simpler provinces of Nature, and conclude 
that physical causes are everywhere concerned in 
the production of organic structures, then we 
have concluded that any evidence of design which 
these structures present is of just the same logi- 
cal value as that which we may attach to the evi- 
dence of design in inorganic nature. If it should 
still be urged that the adaptations met with in 
organic nature are from their number and unity 
much more suggestive of design than anything 
met with in inorganic nature, I must protest that 
this is to change the ground of argument and to 
evade the only point in dispute. No one denies 
the obvious fact stated : the only question is 
whether any number and any quantity of adapta- 
tions in any one department of nature afford other 
or better evidence of design than is afforded by 
adaptations in other departments, when all depart- 
ments alike are supposed to be equally the out- 
come of physical causation. And this question 
I answer in the negative, because we have no 
means of ascertaining the extent to which the 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 69 

process of natural selection, or any other physi- 
cal cause, is competent to produce adaptations of 
the kind observed. 

Thus to take another instance of apparent 
design from inorganic nature, it has been argued 
that the constitution of the atmosphere is clearly 
designed for the support of vegetable and animal 
life. But before this conclusion can be estab- 
lished upon the facts, it must be shown that life 
could exist under no other material conditions 
than those which are furnished to it by the ele- 
mentary constituents of the atmosphere. This, 
however, it is clearly impossible to show. For 
anything that we can know to the contrary, life 
may actually be existing upon some of the other 
heavenly bodies under totally different conditions 
as to atmosphere ; and the fact that on this planet 
all life has come to be dependent upon the gases 
which occur in our atmosphere, may be due sim- 
ply to the fact that it was only the forms of life 
which were able to adapt themselves (through 
natural selection or other physical causes) to 
these particular gases which could possibly be 
expected to occur — just as in matters of still 
smaller detail, it was only those forms of life 
that were suited to their several habitats in the 
marine bay, which could possibly be expected 
to be found in these several situations. Now, if a 
set of adjustments so numerous and so delicate 
as those on which the relations of every known 



70 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

form of life to the constituent gases of the 
atmosphere are seen to depend, can thus be shown 
not necessarily to imply the action of any dispos- 
ing intelligence, how is it possible to conclude 
that any less general exhibitions of adjustment 
imply this, so long as every case of adjustment, 
whether or not ultimately due to design, is 
regarded as proximately due to physical causes ? 
In view of these considerations, therefore, I 
think it is perfectly clear that if the argument 
from teleology is to be saved at all, it can only 
be so by shifting it from the narrow basis of spe- 
cial adaptations, to the broad area of Nature as a 
whole. And here I confess that to my mind the 
argument does acquire a weight which, if long and 
attentively considered, deserves to be regarded 
as enormous. For, although this and that par- 
ticular adjustment in Nature may be seen to be 
proximately due to physical causes, and although 
we are prepared on the grounds of the largest 
possible analogy to infer that all other such par- 
ticular cases are likewise due to physical causes, 
the more ultimate question arises. How is it that 
all physical causes conspire, by their united 
action, to the production of a general order of 
Nature ? It is against all analogy to suppose 
that such an end as this can be accomplished by 
such means as those, in the way of mere chance 
or *the fortuitous concourse of atoms.' We are 
led by the most fundamental dictates of our rea- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 7 1 

son to conclude that there must be some cause 
for this cooperation of causes. I know that from 
Lucretius* time this has been denied ; but it has 
been denied only on grounds of feeling. No 
possible reason can be given for the denial which 
does not run counter to the law of causation 
itself. I am therefore perfectly clear that the 
only question which, from a purely rational point 
of view, here stands to be answered is this — Of 
what nature are we to suppose the causa causarum 
to be? 

On this point only two hypotheses have ever 
been advanced, and I think it is impossible to 
conceive that any third one is open. Of these 
two hypotheses the earliest, and of course the 
most obvious, is that of mental purpose. The 
other hypothesis is one which we owe to the far- 
reaching thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In 
Chapter VII of his First Pri?iciples he argues that 
all causation arises immediately out of existence 
as such, or, as he states it, that * uniformity of law 
inevitably follows from the persistence of force.' 
For *if in any two cases there is exact likeness 
not only between those most conspicuous ante- 
cedents which we distinguish as the causes, but also 
between those accompanying antecedents which 
we call the conditions, we cannot affirm that the 
effects will differ, without affirming either that 
some force has come into existence or that some 
force has ceased to exist. If the co-operative 



/2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

forces in the one case are equal to those in the 
other, each to each, in distribution and amount; 
then it is impossible to conceive the product of 
their joint action in the one case as unlike that in 
the other, without conceiving one or more of the 
forces to have increased or diminished in quantity ; 
and this is conceiving that force is not persistent.' 
Now this interpretation of causality as the 
immediate outcome of existence must be consid- 
ered first as a theory of causation, and next as a 
theory in relation to Theism. As a theory of 
causation it has not met with the approval of 
mathematicians, physicists or logicians, leading 
representatives of all these departments of thought 
having expressly opposed it, while, so far as I am 
aware, no representative of any one of them has 
spoken in its favor.^ But with this point I am not 
at present concerned, for even if the theory were 
admitted to furnish a full and complete explana- 
tion of causality, it would still fail to account for 
the harmonious relation of causes, or the fact with 
v/hich we are now alone concerned. This distinc- 

^ A note (of 1893) contains the following: * Being, considered 
in the abstract, is logically equivalent to Not-Being or Nothing. 
For if by successive stages of abstraction, we divest the concep- 
tion of Being of attribute and relation, we reach the conception of 
that which cannot be, i. e. a logical contradiction, or the logical 
correlative of Being which is Nothing. (All this is well expressed 
in Caird's Evolution of Religion,) The failure to perceive this 
fact constitutes a ground fallacy in my Candid Examination of 
Theism, where I represent Being as being a sufficient explanation 
of the Order of Nature or the law of Causation.* 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 73 

tion is not perceived by the anonymous author 
' Physicus,' who in his Ca7idid Exammatio?i of 
Theisntyldiys great stress upon Mr. Spencer's theory 
of causation as subversive of Theism, or at least 
as superseding the necessity of theistic hypothesis 
by furnishing a full explanation of the order of 
nature on purely physical grounds. But he fails 
to perceive that even if Mr. Spencer's theory were 
conceded fully to explain all the facts of causality, 
it would in no wise tend to explain the cosmos in 
which these facts occur. It may be that causa- 
tion depends upon the * persistence of force:' it 
does not follow that all manifestations of force 
should on this account have been directed to occur 
as they do occur. For, if we follow back any 
sequence of physical causation, we soon find that 
it spreads out on all sides into a network of phys- 
ical relations which are literally infinite both in 
space (conditions) and in time (antecedent causes). 
Now, even if we suppose that the persistence of 
force is a sufficient explanation of the occurrence 
of the particular sequence contemplated so far as 
the exhibition of force is there concerned, we are 
thus as far as ever from explaining the determina- 
tion of this force into the particular channel through 
which it flows. It may be quite true that the 
resultant is determined as to magnitude and direc- 
tion by the components ; but what about the 
magnitude and direction of the components ? If 
it is said that they in turn were determined by the 



74 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

outcome of previous systems, how about these 
systems ? And so on till we spread away into 
the infinite network already mentioned. Only if 
we knew the origin of all series of such systems, 
could we be in a position to say that an adequate 
intelligence might determine beforehand by calcu- 
lation the state of any one part of the universe at 
any given instant of time. But, as the series are 
infinite both in number and extent, this knowledge 
is clearly out of the question. Moreover, even if 
it could be imagined as possible, it could only 
be so imagined at the expense of supposing an 
origin of physical causation in time ; and this 
amounts to supposing a state of things prior to 
such causation, and out of which it arose. But 
to suppose this is to suppose some extra-physical 
source of physical causation ; and whether this 
supposition is made with reference to a physical 
event occurring under immediate observation 
(miracle), or to a physical event in past time, or 
to the origin of all physical events, it is alike 
incompatible with any theory that seeks to give a 
purely physical explanation of the physical uni- 
verse as a whole. It is, in short, the old story 
about a stream not being able to rise above its 
source. Physical causation cannot be made to 
supply its own explanation, and the mere persist- 
ence of force, even if it were conceded to account 
for particular cases of physical sequence, can give 
no account of the ubiquitous and eternal direction 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 75 

of force in the construction and maintenance of 
universal order. 

We are thus, as it were, driven upon the theory 
of Theism as furnishing the only namable expla- 
nation of this universal order. That is to say, by 
no logical artifice can we escape from the conclu- 
sion that, so far as we can see, this universal 
order must be regarded as due to some one 
integrating principle ; and that this, so far as we 
can see, is most probably of the nature of mind. 
At least it must be allowed that we can conceive 
of it under no other aspect ; and that if any par- 
ticular adaptation in organic nature is held to be 
suggestive of such an agency, the sum total of all 
adaptations in the universe must be held to be 
incomparably more so. I shall not, however, 
dwell on this theme since it has been well treated 
by several modern writers, and with special cogency 
by the Rev. Baden Powell. I will merely observe 
that I do not consider it necessary to the display 
of this argument in favour of Theism that we 
should speak of * natural laws.* It is enough to 
take our stand upon the [broadest] general fact 
that Nature is a system, and that the order observ- 
able in this system is absolutely universal, eternally 
enduring, and infinitely exact ; while only upon 
the supposition of its being such is our experience 
conceived as possible, or our knowledge conceived 
as attainable. 

Having thus stated as emphatically as I can 



76 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

that in my opinion no explanation of natural order 
can be either conceived or named other than that 
, of intelligence as the supreme directing cause, I 
shall proceed to two other questions which arise 
immediately out of this conclusion. The first of 
these questions is as to the presumable character 
of this supreme Intelligence so far as any data of 
inference upon this point are supplied by our 
observation of Nature ; and the other question is 
as to the strictly formal cogency of any con- 
clusions either with reference to the existence or 
the character of such an intelligence.' I shall 
consider these two points separately. 

No sooner have we reached the conclusion 
that the only hypothesis whereby the general 
order of Nature admits of being in any degree 
accounted for is that it is due to a cause of a 
mental kind, than we confront the fact that this 
cause must be widely different from anything that 
we know of Mind in ourselves. And we soon 
discover that this difference must be conceived as 
not merely of degree, however great, but of kind. 
In other words, although we may conclude that 
the nearest analogue of the causa causaruTn given 
in experience is the human mind, we are bound to 
acknowledge that in all fundamental points the 
analogy is so remote that it becomes a question 
whether we are really very much nearer the truth 

* [This promise is only partially fulfilled in the penultimate 
paragraph of the essay. — Ed.] 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 77 

by entertaining it. Thus, for instance, as Mr. 
Spencer has pointed out, our only conception of 
that which we know as Mind in ourselves is the 
conception of a series of states of consciousness. 
But, he continues, ' Put a series of states of con- 
sciousness as cause and the evolving universe as 
effect, and then endeavour to see the last as flow- 
ing from the first. I find it possible to imagine 
in some dim way a series of states of conscious- 
ness serving as antecedent to any one of the 
movements I see going on ; for my own states of 
consciousness are often indirectly the antecedents 
to such movements. But how if I attempt to 
think of such a series as antecedent to all actions 
throughout the universe . . . ? If to account for 
this infinitude of physical changes everywhere 
going on, '' Mind must be conceived as there,'* 
*' under the guise of simple dynamics," then the 
reply is, that, to be so conceived. Mind must be 
divested of all attributes by which it is distin- 
guished ; and that, when thus divested of its 
distinguishing attributes the conception dis- 
appears — the word Mind stands for a blank.* 

Moreover, * How is the ''originating Mind** to 
be thought of as having states produced by things 
objective to it, as discriminating among these 
states, and classing them as like and unlike ; and 
as preferring one objective result to another ?* ^ 

' Essays, vol. iii. p, 246 et seq. The whole passage ought to 
be consulted, being too long to quote here. 



78 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

Hence, without continuing this line of argu- 
ment which it would not be difficult to trace 
through every constitutent branch of human 
psychology, we may take it as unquestionable 
that, if there is a Divine Mind, it must differ so 
essentially from the human mind, that it becomes 
illogical to designate the two by the same name : 
the attributes of eternity and ubiquity are in 
themselves enough to place such a Mind in a 
category sui generis, wholly different from any- 
thing which the analogy furnished by our own 
mind enables us even dimly to conceive. And 
this, of course, is no more than theologians admit. 
God's thoughts are above our thoughts, and a God 
who would be comprehensible to our intelligence 
would be no God at all, they say. Which may be 
true enough, only we must remember that in what- 
ever, measure we are thus precluded from under- 
standing the Divine Mind, in that measure are we 
precluded from founding any conclusions as to its 
nature upon analogies furnished by the human 
mind. The theory ceases to be anthropomorphic : 
it ceases to be even *anthropopsychic :' it is 
affiliated with the conception of mind only in 
virtue of the one fact that it serves to give the 
best provisional account of the order of Nature, 
by supposing an infinite extension of some of the 
faculties of the human mind, with a concurrent 
obliteration of all the essential conditions under 
which alone these faculties are known to exist. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 79 

Obviously of such a Mind as this no predication 
is logically possible. If such a Mind exists, it is 
not conceivable as existing, and we are precluded 
from assigning to it any attributes. 

Thus much on general grounds. Descending 
now to matters of more detail, let us assume with 
the natural theologians that such a Mind does 
exist, that it so far resembles the human mind as 
to be a conscious, personal intelligence, and that 
the care of such a mind is over all its works. 
Even upon the grounds of this supposition we 
meet with a number of large and general facts 
which indicate that this mind ought still to be 
regarded as apparently very unlike its 'image' in 
the mind of man. I will not here dwell upon 
the argument of seeming waste and purposeless 
action in Nature, because I think that this may 
be fairly met by the ulterior argument already 
drawn from Nature as a whole — viz. that as a 
whole, Nature is a cosmos, and therefore that 
what to us appears wasteful and purposeless in 
matters of detail may not be so in relation to the 
scheme of things as a whole. But I am doubt- 
ful whether this ulterior argument can be adduced 
to meet the apparent absence in Nature of that 
which in man we term morality. For in the 
human mind the sense of right and wrong — 
with all its accompanying or constituting emo- 
tions of love, sympathy, justice, etc. — is so 
important a factor, that however greatly we may 



8o THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

imagine the intellectual side of the human mind 
to be extended, we can scarcely imagine that the 
moral side could ever become so apparently 
eclipsed as to end in the authorship of such a 
work as we find in terrestrial nature. It is use- 
less to hide our eyes to the state of matters which 
meets us here. Most of the instances of special 
design which are relied upon by the natural theo- 
logian to prove the intelligent nature of the First 
Cause, have as their end or object the infliction 
of painful death or the escape from remorseless 
enemies ; and so far the argument in favour of 
the intelligent nature of the First Cause is an 
argument against its morality. Again, even if 
we quit the narrower basis on which teleological 
argument has rested in the past, and stand that 
argument upon the broader ground of Nature as 
a whole, it scarcely becomes less incompatible 
with any inference to the morality of that Cause, 
seeing that the facts to which I have alluded are 
not merely occasional and, as it were, outweighed 
by contrary facts of a more general kind, but 
manifestly constitute the leading feature of the 
scheme of organic nature as a whole : or, if this 
were held to be questionable, it could only follow 
that we are not entitled to infer that there is any 
such scheme at all. 

Nature, as red in tooth and claw with ravin, is 
thus without question a large and general fact 
that must be considered by any theory of tele- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 8i 

ology which can be propounded. I do not think 
that this aspect of the matter could be conveyed 
in stronger terms than it is by *Physicus/^ whom 
I shall therefore quote : — 

* Supposing the Deity to be, what Professor 
Flint maintains that he is — viz. omnipotent, and 
there can be no inference more transparent than 
that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends 
designed, exhibits an incalculably greater defici- 
ency of beneficence in the divine character than 
that which we know in any, the very worst, of 
human characters. For let us pause for one 
moment to think of what suffering in Nature 
means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago 
some millions of millions of animals must be 
supposed to have become sentient. Since that 
time till the present, there must have been millions 
and millions of generations of millions and mill- 
ions of individuals. And throughout all this 
period of incalculable duration, this inconceivable 
host of sentient organisms have been in a state 
of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking 
to the outcome, we find that more than one-half 
of the species w^hich have survived the ceaseless 
struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and 
insentient forms of life feasting on higher and 
sentient forms ; we find teeth and talons whetted 
for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for 

*In an essay on Prof. Flint's Theis??ty appended to the Can- 
did Examination, 



82 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

torment — everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, 
sickness, with oozing blood and quivering limbs, 
with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that 
dimly close in deaths of cruel torture ! Is it said 
that there are compensating enjoyments ? I care 
not to strike the balance ; the enjoyments I plainly 
perceive to be as physically necessary as the 
pains, and this whether or not evolution is due to 
design. . . . Am I told that I am not competent 
to judge the purposes of the Almighty ? I 
answer that if there are purposes^ I am able to 
judge of them so far as I can see ; and if I am 
expected to judge of His purposes when they 
appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency 
obliged also to judge of them when they appear to 
be malevolent. And it can be no possible exten- 
uation of the latter to point to the ''final result'' 
as ''order and beauty,'' so long as the means 
adopted by the ^^ Omnipotent Designer'' are known 
to have been so [terrible]. All that we could 
legitimately assert in this case would be that, so 
far as observation can extend, " He cares for 
animal perfection" to the exclusion of "animal 
enjoyment," and even to the total disregard 
of animal suffering. But to assert this would 
merely be to deny beneficence as an attribute of 
God.'^ 

The reasoning here appears as unassailable as 
it is obvious. If, as the writer goes on to say, we 

'^ A Candid Examination of Theism^ pp. 1 7 1-2. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 83 

see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring 
trap, and in consequence abhor the devilish nature 
of the being who, with full powers of realizing 
what pain means, can deliberately employ his 
whole faculties of invention in contriving a thing 
so hideously cruel ; what are we to think of a 
Being who, with yet higher faculties of thought 
and knowledge, and with an unlimited choice of 
means to secure His ends, has contrived untold 
thousands of mechanisms no less diabolical ? In 
short, so far as Nature can teach us, or * observa- 
tion can extend,' it does appear that the scheme, 
if it is a scheme, is the product of a Mind which 
differs from the more highly evolved type of 
human mind in that it is immensely more intel- 
lectual without being nearly so moral. And the 
same thing is indicated by the rough and indis- 
criminate manner in which justice is allotted — 
even if it can be said to be allotted at all. When 
we contrast the certainty and rigour with which 
any offence against 'physical law' is punished 
by Nature (no matter though the sin be but 
one of ignorance), with the extreme uncertainty 
and laxity with which she meets any offence 
against * moral law,' we are constrained to feel 
that the system of legislation (if we may so 
term it) is conspicuously different from that 
which would have been devised by any intelli- 
gence which in any sense could be called * anthro- 
popsychic* 



84 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

The only answer to these difficulties open to 
the natural theologian is that which is drawn from 
the constitution of the human mind. It is argued 
that the fact of this mind having so large an 
ingredient of morality in its constitution may be 
taken as proof that its originating source is like- 
wise of a moral character. This argument, how- 
ever, appears to me of a questionable character, 
seeing that, for anything we can tell to the con- 
trary, the moral sense may have been given to, 
or developed in, man simply on account of its 
utility to the species — just in the same way as 
teeth in the shark or poison in the snake. If so, 
the occurrence of the moral sense in man would 
merely furnish one other instance of the intellec- 
tual, as distinguished from the moral, nature of 
God ; and there seems to be in itself no reason 
why we should take any other view. The mere fact 
that to us the moral sense seems such a great and 
holy thing, is doubtless (under any view) owing 
to its importance to the well-being of our species. 
In itself, or as it appears to other possible beings 
intellectual like ourselves, but existing under 
unlike conditions, the moral sense of man may be 
regarded as of no more significance than the 
social instincts of bees. More particularly may 
this consideration apply to the case of a Mind 
existing, according to the theological theory of 
things, wholly beyond the pale of anything anal- 
ogous to those social relations out of which, accord- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 85 

ing to the scientific theory of evolution, the moral 
sense has been developed in ourselves.^ 

The truth is that in this matter natural theo- 
logians begin by assuming that the First Cause, 
if intelligent, must be moral ; and then they are 
blinded to the strictly logical weakness of the 
argument whereby they endeavor to sustain their 
assumption. For aught that we can tell to the 
contrary, it may be quite as * anthropomorphic* a 
notion to attribute morality to God as it would be 
to attribute those capacities for sensuous enjoy- 
ment with which the Greeks endowed their 
divinities. The Deity may be as high above 
the one as the other — or rather perhaps we may 
say as much external to the one as to the other. 
Without being supra-moral, and still less immoral, 
He may be un-moral : our ideas of morality may 
have no meaning as applied to Him. 

But if we go thus far in one direction, I think, 
per contra, it must inconsistency be allowed that the 
argument from the constitution of the human mind 
acquires more weight when it is shifted from the 
moral sense to the religious instincts. For, on the 

* [ I have, as Editor, resisted a temptation to intervene in the 
above argument. But I think I may intervene on a matter of 
fact, and point out that * according to the theological theory of 
things,' i. e. according to the Trinitarian doctrine, God's Nature 
consists in what is strictly * analogous to social relations,' and He 
not merely exhibits in His creation, but Himself is Love. See, on 
the subject, especially, R. H. Hutton's essay on the Incarnation 
in his Theological Essays (Macmillan). — Ed.] 



86 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

one hand, these instincts are not of such obvious 
use to the species as are those of morality ; and, 
on the other hand, while they are unquestionably 
very general, very persistent, and very powerful, 
they do not appear to serve any ' end ' or * purpose ' 
in the scheme of things, unless we accept the theory 
which is given of them by those in whom they are 
most strongly developed. Here I think we have 
an argument of legitimate force, although it does 
not appear that such was the opinion entertained 
of it by Mill. I think the argument is of legiti- 
mate force, because if the religious instincts of the 
human race point to no reality as their object, they 
are out of analogy with all other instinctive endow- 
ments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we 
never meet with such a thing as an instinct pointing 
aimlessly, and therefore the fact of man being, 
as it is said, *a religious animal' — i. e. presenting 
a class of feelings of a peculiar nature directed to 
particular ends, and most akin to, if not identical 
with, true instinct — is so far, in my opinion, a 
legitimate argument in favor of the reality of some 
object towards which the religious side of this 
animal's nature is directed. And I do not think 
that this argument is invalidated by such facts as 
that widely different intellectual conceptions 
touching the character of this object are enter- 
tained by different races of mankind , that the force 
of the religious instincts differs greatly in different 
individuals even of the same race ; that these 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 87 

instincts admit of being greatly modified by edu- 
cation ; that they would probably fail to be devel- 
oped in any individual without at least so much edu- 
cation as is required to furnish the needful intel- 
lectual conceptions on which they are founded ; or 
that we may not improbably trace their origin, as 
Mr. Spencer traces it, to a primitive mode of inter- 
preting dreams. For even in view of all these 
considerations the fact remains that these instincts 
exists and therefore, like all other instincts, may be 
supposed to have a deji?iite meaning, even though, 
like all other instincts, they may be supposed to 
have had a natural cause, which both in the indi- 
vidual and in the race requires, as in the natural 
development of all other instincts, the natural 
conditions for its occurrence to be supplied. In 
a word, if animal instincts generally, like organic 
structures or inorganic systems, are held to 
betoken purpose, the religious nature of man 
would stand out as an anomaly in the general 
scheme of things if it alone were purposeless. 
Hence we have here what seems to me a valid 
inference, so far as it goes, to the effect that, if 
the general order of Nature is due to Mind, the 
character of that Mind is such as it is conceived to 
be by the most highly developed form of religion. 
A conclusion which is no doubt the opposite of 
that which we reached by contemplating the phe- 
nomena of biology ; and a contradiction which can 
only be overcome by supposing, either that Nature 



88 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

conceals God, while man reveals Him, or that 
Nature reveals God while man misrepresents 
him. 

There is still one other fact of a very wide and 
general kind presented by Nature, which, if the 
order of Nature is taken to be the expression of 
intelligent purpose, ought in my opinion to be 
regarded as of great weight in furnishing evidence 
upon the ethical quality of that purpose. It is a 
fact which, so far as I know, has not been consid- 
ered by any other writer ; but from its being one of 
the most general of all the facts relating to the 
sentient creation, and from its admitting of no one 
single exception, I feel that I am not able too 
strongly to emphasize its argumentative impor- 
tance. This fact is, as I have stated it on a former 
occasion, * that amid all the millions of mechanisms 
and instincts in the animal kingdom, there is no 
one instance of mechanism or instinct occurring 
in one species for the exclusive benefit of another 
species, although there are a few cases in which 
a mechanism or instinct that is of benefit to its 
possessor has come also to be utilized by other 
species. Now, on the beneficent design theory it 
is impossible to explain why, when all the mechan- 
isms in the same species are invariably correlated 
for the benefit of that species, there should never 
be any such correlation between mechanisms in 
different species, or why the same remark should 
apply to instincts. For how magnificent a dis- 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 89 

play of Divine beneficence would organic nature 
have afforded, if all, or even some, species had 
been so inter-related as to minister to each other's 
necessities. Organic species might then have 
been likened to a countless multitude of voices 
all singing in one harmonious psalm of praise. 
But, as it is, we see no vestige of such co-ordina- 
tion ; every species is for itself, and for itself 
alone — an outcome of the always and everywhere 
fiercely raging struggle for life.'^ 

The large and general fact thus stated consti- 
tutes, in my opinion, the strongest of all argu- 
ments in favour of Mr. Darwin's theory of natural 
selection, and therefore we can see the proba- 
ble reason why it is what it is, so far as the 
question of its physical causation is concerned. 
But where the question is. Supposing the physical 
causation ultimately due to Mind, what are we 
to infer concerning the character of the Mind 
which has adopted this method of causation? — 
then we again reach the answer that, so far as we 
can judge from a conscientious examination of 
these facts, this Mind does not show that it is of 
a nature which in man we should call moral. Of 
course behind the physical appearances there may 
be a moral justification, so that from these appear- 
ances we are not entitled to say more than that 
from the fact of its having chosen a method of 
physical causation leading to these results, it has 

^Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution^ pp. 76-7. 



90 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

presented to us the appearance, as before observed, 
of caring for animal perfection to the exclusion of 
animal enjoyment, and even to the total disregard 
of animal suffering. 

In conclusion, it is of importance to insist 
upon a truth which in discussions of this kind is 
too often disregarded — viz. that all our reason- 
ings being of a character relative to our knowl- 
edge, our inferences are uncertain in a degree 
proportionate to the extent of our ignorance ; 
and that as with reference to the topics which we 
have been considering our ignorance is of im- 
measurable extent, any conclusions that we may 
have formed are, as Bishop Butler would say, 
* infinitely precarious.' Or, as I have previously 
presented this formal aspect of the matter while 
discussing the teleological argument with Profes- 
sor Asa Gray, — 'I suppose it will be admitted 
that the validity of an inference depends upon 
the number, the importance, and the definiteness 
of the things or ratios known, as compared 
with the number, importance, and definiteness 
of the things or ratios unknown, but inferred. If 
so, we should be logically cautious in drawing 
inferences from the natural to the supernatural : 
for although we have the entire sphere of experi- 
ence from which to draw an inference, we are 
unable to gauge the probability of the inference 
when drawn — the unknown ratios being con- 
fessedly of unknown number, importance, and 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 91 

degree of definiteness : the whole orbit of human 
knowledge is insufificient to obtain a parallax 
whereby to institute the required measurements 
or to determine the proportion between the terms 
known and the terms unknown. Otherwise 
phrased, we may say — as our knowledge of a 
part is to our knowledge of a whole, so is our 
inference from that part to the reality of that 
whole. Who, therefore, can say, even upon the 
hypothesis of Theism, that our inferences or 
**idea of design'' would have any meaning if 
applied to the ''All-Upholder," whose thoughts 
are not as our thoughts ?^' And of course, 7mitatis 
nititandis, the same remarks apply to all inferences 
having a negative tendency. 

As an outcome of the whole of this discussion, 
then, I think it appears that the influence of 
Science upon Natural Religion has been uniformly 
of a destructive character. Step by step it has 
driven back the apparent evidence of direct or 
special design in Nature, until now this evidence 
resides exclusively in the one great and general 
fact that Nature as a whole is a Cosmos. Further 
than this it is obviously impossible that the 
destructive influence of Science can extend, 
because Science can only exist upon the basis of 
this fact. But when we allow that this great and 
universal fact — which but for the effects of 
unremitting familiarity could scarcely fail to be 

"^ Nature, k.^x\\ 5, 1883. 



92 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

intellectually overwhelming — does betoken mental 
agency in Nature, we immediately find it impos- 
sible to determine the probable character of such 
a mind, even supposing that it exists. We can- 
not conceive of it as presenting any one of the 
qualities which essentially characterize what we 
know as mind in ourselves ; and therefore the 
word Mind, as applied to the supposed agency, 
stands for a blank. Further, even if we disregard 
this difficulty, and assume that in some way or 
other incomprehensible to us a Mind does exist 
as far transcending the human mind as the human 
mind transcends mechanical motion; still we are 
met by some very large and general facts in 
Nature which seem strongly to indicate that this 
Mind, if it exists, is either deficient in, or wholly 
destitute of, that class of feelings which in man 
we term moral ; while, on the other hand, the 
religious aspirations of man himself may be taken 
to indicate the opposite conclusion. And, lastly, 
with reference to the whole course of such 
reasonings, we have seen that any degree of 
measurable probability, as attaching to the con^ 
elusions, is unattainable. From all which it appears 
that Natural Religion at the present time can 
only be regarded as a system full of intellectual 
contradictions and moral perplexities ; so that if 
we go to her with these greatest of all questions : 
* Is there knowledge with the Most High ? * * Shall 
not the Judge of all the earth do right ?' the only 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 93 

clear answer which we receive is the one that 
comes back to us from the depths of our own 
heart — *When I thought upon this it was too 
painful for me.' 



PART II. 



95 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE 
EDITOR. 

Little more requires to be said by way of 
introduction to the Notes which are all that 
George Romanes was able to write of a work that 
was to have been entitled A Ca7idid Examina- 
tion of Religion, What little does require to be 
said must be by way of bridging the interval of 
thought which exists between the Essays which 
have just preceded and the Notes which represent 
more nearly his final phase of mind. 

The most anti-theistic feature in the Essays 
is the stress laid in them on the evidence 
which Nature supplies, or is supposed to supply, 
antagonistic to the belief in the goodness of 
God. 

On this mysterious and perplexing subject 
George Romanes appears to have had more to 
say but did not live to say it^ We may notice 
however that in 1889, in a paper read before the* 
Aristotelian Society, on *the Evidence of Design 

'See below p. 152 and note. I find also the following note of 
a date subsequent to 1889. * It is a fact that pessimism is illogical, 
simply because we are inadequate judges of the world, and 
pessimism would therefore be opposed to agnosticism. We may 
know that there is something out of joint between the world and 
ourselves ; but we cannot know how far this is the fault of the 
world or of ourselves.' 

97 



9^ THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

in Nature %' he appears to allow more weight 
than before to the argument that the method of 
physical development must be judged in the light 
of its result. This paper was part of a Symposium. 
Mr. S. Alexander has argued in a previous paper 
against the hypothesis of 'design' in Nature on 
the ground that * the fair order of Nature is only 
acquired by a wholesale waste and sacrifice.' 
This argument was developed by pointing to the 
obvious *mal-adjustments/ * aimless destructions,' 
&c., which characterize the processes of Nature. 
But these, Romanes replies, necessarily belong to 
the process considered as one of * natural selec- 
tion.' The question is only : Is such a process 
per se incompatible with the hypothesis of 
design ? And he replies in the negative. 

*** The fair order of Nature is only acquired 
by a wholesale waste and sacrifice." Granted. 
But if the *' wholesale waste and sacrifice," as 
antecedent, leads to a **fair order of Nature" as 
its consequent, how can it be said that the 
*' wholesale waste and sacrifice" has been a 
failure ? Or how can it be said that, in point of 
fact, there has been a waste, or has been a sacri- 
fice ? Clearly such things can only be said when 
our point of view is restricted to the means (i. e. 
the wholesale destruction of the less fit); not 

^Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Williams & Norgate), 
vol. i. no. 3, pp. 72, 73. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 99 

when we extend our view to what, even within 
the limits of human observation, is unquestion- 
ably the e7id (i. e. the casual result in an ever 
improving world of types). A candidate who is 
plucked in a Civil Service examination because 
he happens to be one of the less fitted to pass, 
is no doubt an instance of failure so far as his 
own career is concerned ; but it does not there- 
fore follow that the system of examination is a 
failure in its final end of securing the best men 
for the Civil Service. And the fact that the 
general outcome of all the individual failures in 
Nature is that of securing what Mr. Alexander 
calls **the fair order of Nature,'' is assuredly 
evidence that the modus operandi has not been a 
failure in relation to what, if there be any Design 
in Nature at all, must be regarded as the higher 
purpose of such Design. Therefore, cases of 
individual or otherwise relative failure cannot be 
quoted as evidence against the hypothesis of there 
being such Design. The fact that the general 
system of natural causation has for its eventual 
result '*a fair order of Nature,'* cannot of itself 
be a fact inimical to the hypothesis of Design in 
Nature, even though it be true that such causation 
entails the continual elimination of the less 
efficient types. 

*To the best of my judgment, then, this argu- 
ment from failure, random trial, blind blundering, 
or in whatever other terminology the argument 



loo THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

may be presented, is only valid as against the 
theory of what Mr. Alexander alludes to as a 
** Carpenter-God," i. e. that if there be Design in 
Nature at all, it must everywhere be special 
Design ; so that the evidence of it may as well be 
tested by any given minute fragment of Nature — 
such as one individual organism or class of organ- 
isms — as by having regard to the whole Cosmos. 
The evidence of Design in this sense I fully allow 
has been totally destroyed by the proof of natural 
selection. But such destruction has only brought 
into clearer relief the much larger question that 
rises behind, viz. as before phrased, Is there any- 
thing about the method of natural causation, 
considered as a whole, that is inimical to the 
theory of Design in Nature, considered as a 
whole ? ' 

It is true that this argument does not bear 
directly upon the character of the God whose 
* design* Nature exhibits: but indirectly it does.^ 
For instance, such an argument as that found 
above (on p. 83 : *we see a rabbit, &c.') seems to 
be only valid on the postulate here described as 
that of the * Carpenter-God.' 

' I ought also to mention that Romanes on the Sunday before 
his death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the 
argument of Professor Knight's Aspects of Theism (Macmillan, 
1893); in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, * A larger good 
is evolved through the winnowing process by which physical 
nature casts its weaker products aside,' &c. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. lOl 

It is also probable that Romanes felt the diffi- 
culty arising from the cruelty of nature less, as he 
was led to dwell more on humanity as the most 
important part of nature, and perceived the func- 
tion of suffering in the economy of human life 
(pp. 152, 164): and also as he became more 
impressed with the positive evidences for Chris- 
tianity as at once the religion of sorrow and the 
revelation of God as Love (pp. 174, ff.). The 
Christian Faith supplies believers not only with 
an argument against pessimism from general 
results, but also with such an insight into the 
Divine character and method as enables them at 
least to bear hopefully the awful perplexities 
which arise from the spectacle of individuals 
suffering. 

In the last year or two of his life he read very 
attentively a great number of books on * Christian 
Evidences,* from Pascal's Pens^es downwards, and 
studied carefully the appearance of 'plan' in the 
Biblical Revelation considered as a whole. The 
factoi this study appears in fragmentary remarks, 
indices and references, which George Romanes 
left behind him in note-books. The results of it 
will not be unapparent in the following Notes, 
which, I need not remind my readers, are, in spite 
of their small bulk, the sole reason for the exist- 
ence of this volume. 

In reading these I can hardly conceive any one 
not being possessed with a profound regret that 



102 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the author was not allowed to complete his work. 
And it is only fair to ask every reader of the fol- 
lowing pages to remember that he is reading, in 
the main, incomplete notes and not finished work. 
This will account for a great deal that may seem 
sketchy and unsatisfactory in the treatment of 
different points, and also for repetitions and traces 
of inconsistency. But I can hardly think any one 
can read these notes to the end without agreeing 
with me that if I had withheld them from publi- 
cation, the world would have lost the witness of 
a mind, both able and profoundly sincere, feeling 
after God and finding Him. 

C. G. 



NOTES FOR A WORK ON 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 

By METAPHYSICUS. 

Proposed Mottoes, 

'I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man 
there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and 
dimmed, is by this purified and re-illumined ; and is more precious 
far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen. 
Now there are two classes of persons, one class who will agree 
with you and will take your words as a revelation ; another class 
who have no understanding of them and to whom they will 
naturally be as idle tales. 

*And you had better decide at once with which of the two 
you are arguing ; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that 
your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improve- 
ment ; at the same time not grudging to either any benefit which 
they may derive.' — Plato. 

*If we would reprove with success, and show another his 
mistake, we must see from what side he views the matter, for on 
that side it is generally true : and, admitting this tinith, show him 
the side on which it is false.' — Pascal. 



103 



§ I. INTRODUCTORY. 

Many years ago I published in Messrs. Triib- 
ner's ' Philosophical Series,' a short treatise entitled 
A Candid Examination of Theism by * Physicus/ 
Although the book made some stir at the time, 
and has since exhibited a vitality never anticipated 
by its author, the secret of its authorship has been 
well preserved.^ This secret it is my intention, 
if possible, still to preserve ; but as it is desirable 
(on several accounts which will become apparent 
in the following pages) to avow identity of author- 
ship, the present essay appears under the same 
pseudonym^ as its predecessor. The reason why 
the first essay appeared anonymously is truthfully 
stated in the preface thereof, viz. in order that the 
reasoning should be judged on its own merits, 
without the bias which is apt to arise on the part 

*The first edition, which was published in 1878, was rapidly 
exhausted, but, as m}^ object in publishing was solely that of 
soliciting criticism for my own benefit, I arranged with the pub- 
lishers not to issue any further edition. The work has therefore 
been out of print for many years. 

[This * arrangement ' was however not actually made, or at 
least was unknown to the present publishing firm of Kegan Paul, 
Trench, Trilbner & Co. Thus a new edition of the book was 
published in 1892, to the author's surprise. — Ed.] 

^ [Or rather it was intended that it should appear under the 
pseudonym of * Metaphysicus.' — Ed.] 

104 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION 105 

of a reader from a knowledge of the autho ity — 
or absence of authority — on the part of a writer. 
This reason, in my opinion, still holds good as 
regards A Caiidid Exami?iatio?i of Theism, and 
applies in equal measure to the present sequel in 
A Candid Exarni?iatio?i of Religion, 

It will be shown that in many respects the 
negative conclusions reached in the former essay 
have been greatly modified by the results of 
maturer thought as now presented in the second. 
Therefore it seems desirable to state at the outset 
that, as far as I am capable of judging the modi- 
fications in question have not been due in any 
measure to influence from without. They appear 
to have been due exclusively to the results of my 
own further thought, as briefly set out in the 
following pages, with no indebtedness to private 
friends and but little to published utterances in 
the form of books, &c. Nevertheless, no very 
original ideas are here presented. Indeed, I 
suppose it would nowadays be impossible to pre- 
sent any idea touching religion, which has not at 
some time or another been presented previously. 
Still much may be done in the furthering of one's 
thought by changing points of view, selecting and 
arranging ideas already more or less familiar, so 
that they may be built into new combinations ; and 
this, I think, I have in no small degree accom- 
plished as regards the microcosm of my own 
mind. But I state this much only for the sake of 



lo6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

adding a confession that, as far as introspection 
can carry one, it does not appear to me that the 
modifications which my views have undergone 
since the publication of my previous Candid 
Exa7ninatio7i are due so much to purely logical 
processes of the intellect, as to the sub-conscious 
(and therefore more or less unanalyzable) 
influences due to the ripening experience of life. 
The extent to which this is true [i.e. the extent 
to which experience modifies logic] ^ is seldom, 
if ever, realized, although it is practically 
exemplified every day by the sobering caution 
which advancing age exercises upon the mind. 
Not so much by any above-board play of 
syllogism as by some underhand cheating of con- 
sciousness, do the accumulating experiences of 
life and of thought slowly enrich the judgment. 
And this, one need hardly say, is especially true 
in such regions of thought as present the most 
tenuous media for the progress of thought by the 
comparatively clumsy means of syllogistic loco- 
motion. For the further we ascend from the solid 
ground of verification, the less confidence should 
we place in our wings of speculation, while the 
more do we find the practical wisdom of such 
intellectual caution, or distrust of ratiocination, as 
can be given only by experience. Therefore, 
most of all is this the case in those departments 

^ [Words in square brackets have been added by me. But I 
have not introduced the brackets when I have simply inserted 
single unimportant words obviously necessary for the sense. — Ed.1 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 107 

of thought which are furthest from the region of 
our sensuous Hfe — viz. metaphysics and religion. 
And, as a matter of fact, it is just in these depart- 
ments of thought that we find the rashness of 
youth most amenable to the discipline in question 
by the experience of age. 

However, in spite of this confession, I have no 
doubt that even in the matter of pure and con- 
scious reason further thought has enabled me to 
detect serious errors, or rather oversights, in the 
very foundations of my Cajidid Examination of 
Theism. I still think, indeed, that from the 
premises there laid down the conclusions result in 
due logical sequence, so that, as a matter of mere 
ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect any 
serious flaws, especially as this has not been done 
by anybody else during the many years of its 
existence. But I now clearly perceive two well- 
nigh fatal oversights which I then committed. 
The first was undue confidence in merely syllogistic 
conclusions, even when derived from sound 
premises, in regions of such high abstraction. 
The second was, in not being sufficiently careful 
in examining the foundations of my criticism, i. e. 
the validity of its premises. I will here briefly 
consider these two points separately. 

As regards the first point, never was any one 
more arrogant in his claims for pure reason than 
I was — more arrogant in spirit though not in 
letter, this being due to contact with science ; 



io8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

without ever considering how opposed to reason 
itself is the unexpressed assumption of my earlier 
argument as to God Himself, as if His existence 
were a merely physical problem to be solved by 
man's reason alone, without reference to his other 
and higher faculties. * 

The second point is of still more importance, 
because so seldom, if ever, recognized. 

At the tim.e of writing the Candid Examination 
I perceived clearly how the whole question of 
Theism from the side of reason turned on thr 
question as to the nature of natural causatior^. 
My theory of natural causation obeyed the Law 
of Parsimony, resolving all into Being as such ; 
but, on the other hand, it erred in not consider- 
ing whether * higher causes ' are not * necessary * 
to account for spiritual facts — i.e. whether the 
ultimate Being must not be at least as high as the 
intellectual and spiritual nature of man, i. e. higher 
than anything merely physical or mechanical. 
The supposition that it must does not violate the 
Law of Parsimony. 

Pure agnostics ought to investigate the religious 
consciousness of Christians as a phenomenon 
which may possibly be what Christians themselves 
believe it to be, i. e. of Divine origin. And this 

^ [See p. 30, quotation from Preface of *Physicus.' The 
state of mind expressed in the above Note is a return to the earlier 
frame of mind of the Burney Essay, e.g. p. 20. That essay was 
full of the thought that Christian evidences are very manifold and 
largely 'extra-scientific* — Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 109 

may be done without entering into any question 
as to the objective validity of Christian dogmas. 
The metaphysics of Christianity may be false in 
fact, and yet the spirit of Christianity^may be true 
in substance — i. e. it may be the highest * good 
gift from above' as yet given to man. 

My present object, then, like that of Socrates, 
is not to impart any philosophical system, or even 
positive knowledge, but a frame of mind, what 
I may term, pure agnosticism, as distinguished 
from what is commonly so called. 



§ 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND PUR- 
POSE OF THIS TREATISE. 

[To understand George Romanes' mind close 
attention must be paid to the following section. 
Also to the fact, not explicitly noticed by him, 
that he uses the word 'reason' (see p. ii8) in a 
sense closely resembling that in which Mr. Kidd 
has recently used it in his Social Evohttion. He 
uses it, that is, in a restricted sense as equivalent 
to the process of scientific ratiocination. His main 
position is therefore this: Scientific ratiocination 
cannot find adequate grounds for belief in God. 
But the pure agnostic must recognize that God 
may have revealed Himself by other means than 
that of scientific ratiocination. As religion is for 
the whole man, so all human faculties may be 
required to seek after God and find Him — emo- 
tions and experiences of an extra-* rational ' kind. 
The 'pure agnostic' must be prepared to wel- 
come evidence of all sorts. — Ed.] 

It is desirable to be clear at the outset as to 
the meaning which I shall throughout attach to 
certain terms and phrases. 

THEISM. 
It will frequently be said, *on the theory of 
Theism,' 'supposing Theism true,' &c. By such 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION, in 

phrase my meaning will always be equivalent to — 
'supposing' for the sake of argument, that the 
nearest approach which the human mind can make 
to a true notion of the eiis realissimum, is that of 
an inconceivably magnified image of itself at its 
best/ 

CHRISTIANITY. 

Similarly, when it is said, 'supposing Christi- 
anity true,' what will be meant is — 'supposing for 
the sake of argument, that the Christian system 
as a whole, from its earliest dawn in Judaism, to 
the phase of its development at the present time, 
is the highest revelation of Himself which a per- 
sonal Deity has vouchsafed to mankind.* This I 
intend to signify an attitude of pure agnosticism 
as regards any particular dogma of Christianity — 
even that of the Incarnation. 

Should it be said that by holding in suspense 
any distinctive dogma of Christianity, I am not 
considering Christianity at all, I reply. Not so; 
I am not writing a theological, but a philosophical 
treatise, and shall consider Christianity merely as 
one of many religions, though, of course, the 
latest, &c. Thus considered, Christianity takes 
its place as the highest manifestation of evolution 
in this department of the human mind; but I am 
not concerned even with so important an ecclesi- 
astical dogma as that of the Incarnation of God in 
Christ. As far as this treatise has to go, that 
dogma may or may not be true. The important 



112 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

question for us is, Has God spoken through the 
medium of our religious instincts? And although 
this will necessarily involve the question whether 
or how far in the case of Christianity there is 
objective evidence of His having spoken by the 
mouth of holy men [of the Old Testament] which 
have been since the world began, such will be the 
case only because it is a question of objective 
evidence whether or how far the religious 
instincts of these men, or this race of men, have 
been so much superior to those of other men, or 
races of men, as to have enabled them to predict 
future events of a religious character. And 
whether or not in these latter days God has spoken 
by His own Son is not a question for us, further 
than to investigate the higher class of religious 
phenomena which unquestionably have been pres- 
ent in the advent and person of Jesus. The 
question whether Jesus was the Son of God, is, 
logically speaking, a question of ontology, which, 
qua pure agnostics, we are logically forbidden to 
touch. 

But elsewhere I ought to show that, from my 
point of view as to the fundamental question 
being whether God has spoken at all through the 
religious instincts of mankind, it may very well 
be that Christ was not God, and yet that He gave 
the highest revelation of God. If the* first Man* 
was allegorical, why not the* second?' It is, 
indeed, an historical fact that the * second Man' 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 113 

existed, but so likewise may the 'first.' And, as 
regards the * personal claims' of Christ, all that 
He said is not incompatible with His having been 
Gabriel, and His Ploly Ghost, Michael.^ Or He 
may have been a man deceived as to His own 
personality, and yet the vehicle of highest inspi- 
ration. 

RELIGION. 

By the term * religion,' I shall mean any theory 
of personal agency in the universe, belief in which 
is strong enough in any degree to influence con- 
duct. No term has been used more loosely of 
late years, or in a greater variety of meanings. 
Of course anybody may use it in any sense he 
pleases, provided he defines exactly in what sense 
he does so. The above seems to be most in 
accordance with traditional usage. 

AGNOSTICISM *PURE' AND * IMPURE.' 
The modern and highly convenient term 
'Agnosticism,' is used in two very different senses. 
By its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined 
to signify an attitude of reasoned ignorance 
touching everything that lies beyond the sphere 
of sense-perception — a professed inability to 
found valid belief on any other basis. It is in 
this its original sense — and also, in my opinion, 
its only philosophically justifiable sense — that I 
shall understand the term. But the other, and 

^ [i. e. Supernatural but not strictly Divine Persons. Surely, 
however, the proposition is not maintainable. — Ed.] 



114 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

perhaps more popular sense in which the word is 
now employed, is as the correlative of Mr. H. 
Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable. 

This latter term is philosophically erroneous, 
implying important negative knowledge that if 
there be a God we know this much about Him — 
that He camwi reveal Himself to man.' Pure 
agnosticism is as defined by Huxley. 

Of all the many scientific men whom I have 
known, the most pure in his agnosticism — not 
only in profession but in spirit and conduct — 
was Darwin. (What he says in his autobiography 
about Christianity^ shows no profundity of thought 
in the direction of philosophy or religion. His 
mind was too purely inductive for this. But, on 
this very account, it is the more remarkable that 
his rejection of Christianity was due, not to any 
apriorihidiS against the creed on grounds of reason 
as absurd, but solely on the ground of an apparent 
moral objection a posteriori. "^^ Faraday and 
many other first-rate originators in science were 
like Darwin. 

As an illustration of impure agnosticism take 
Hume's ^ /n<?n argument against miracles, lead- 
ing on to the analogous case of the attitude of 
scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Not- 

^ [This is another instance of recurrence to an earlier thought ; 
see Burney Essay, p. 25. — Ed.] 

^Life and Letters of Charles Darwin^ i. 308. 
3 [See further, p. 194.— Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. ii.S 

withstanding that they have the close analogy of 
mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, 
scientific men as a class are here quite as dog- 
matic as the straightest sect of theologians. 
I may give examples which can cause no offence, 
inasmuch as the men in question have themselves 

made the facts public, viz. refusing to go to 

[a famous spiritualist] ; refusing to try in 

thought-reading.' These men all professed to be 
agnostics at the very time when thus so egregrious- 
ly violating their philosophy by their conduct. 

Of course I do not mean to say that, even to 
a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in 
part by antecedent presumption — e. g. in ordi- 
nary life, Xh^ prima facie case, motive, &c., counts 
for evidence in a court of law^ — and where there 
is a strong antecedent improbability a proportion- 
ately greater weight of evidence a posteriori is 
needed to counterbalance it : so that, e. g. better 
evidence would be needed to convict the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket- 
picking. And so it is with speculative philosophy. 
But in both cases our only guide is know^n 
analogy ; therefore, the further we are removed 
from possible experience — i. e. the more remote 
from experience the sphere contemplated — the 
less value attaches to antecedent presumptions.^ 

' [On the whole I have thought it best to omit the names. — 
Ed.] 

2 [The MS. note here continues : * Here introduce all that I 



Ii6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

Maximum remoteness from possible experience is 
reached in the sphere of the final mystery of 
things with which religion has to do ; so that here 
all presumption has faded away into a vanishing 
point, and pure agnosticism is our only rational atti- 
tude. In other words, here we should all alike 
be pure agnostics as far as reason is concerned ; 
and, if any of us are to attain to any information, it 
can only be by means of some super-added 
faculty of our minds. The questions as to whether 
there are any such super-added faculties ; if so, 
whether they ever appear to have been acted upon 
from without ; if they have, in what manner they 
have ; what is their report, how far they are 
trustworthy in that report, and so on — these are 
the questions with which this treatise is to be 
mainly concerned. 

say on the subject in my Burney Prize.' I have not, however, 
introduced any quotation into the text because (i) I think 
Romanes makes his meaning plain in the text as it stands ; (2) I 
cannot find in the essay in question any exactly appropriate pas- 
sage of reasonable length to quote. The greater part of the essay 
is, however, directed to meet the scientific objection to the doctrine 
that prayer is answered in the physical region, by showing that 
this objection consists in an argument from the known to the 
unknown, i. e. from the known sphere of invariable physical laws 
to the unknown sphere of God's relation to all such laws ; and is, 
therefore, v/eak in proportion as the unknown sphere is remote 
trom possible experience of a scientific kind, and admits of an 
indefinite number of possibilities, more or less conceivable to our 
imagination, which would or might prevent the scientific argu- 
ment from having legitimate application to the question in 
hand. — Ed]. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 117 

My own attitude may be here stated. I do not 
claim any [religious] certainty of an intuitive kind 
myself ; but am nevertheless able to investigate the 
abstract logic of the matter. And, although this 
may seem but barren dialectic, it may, I hope, be 
of practical service if it secures a fair hearing to 
the reports given by the vast majority of mankind 
who unquestionably believe them to emanate from 
some such super-added faculties — numerous and 
diverse though their religions be. Besides, in my 
youth I published an essay (the Candid Examiiia- 
tio7i) which excited a good deal of interest at the 
time, and has been long out of print. In that 
treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong 
touching what I constituted the basal argument 
for my negative conclusion. Therefore I now 
feel it obligatory on me to publish the following 
results of my maturer thought, from the same 
stand-point of pure reason. Even though I have 
obtained no further light from the side of intui- 
tion, I have from that of intellect. So that, if 
there be in truth any such intuition, I occupy with 
regard to the organ of it the same position as 
that of the blind lecturer on optics. But on this 
very account I cannot be accused of partiality 
towards it. 

It is generally assumed that when a man has 
clearly perceived agnosticism to be the only legit- 
imate attitude of reason to rest in with regard to 
religion (as I will subsequently show that it is). 



ii8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

he has thereby finished with the matter ; he can 
go no further. The main object of this treatise 
is to show that such is by no means the case. 
He has then only begun his enquiry into the 
grounds and justification of religious belief. For 
reason is not the only attribute of man, nor is it 
the only faculty which he habitually employs for 
the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual 
faculties are of no less importance in their respec- 
tive spheres even of everyday life ; faith, trust, 
taste, &c., are as needful in ascertaining truth as 
to character, beauty, &c., as is reason. Indeed 
we may take it that reason is concerned in ascer- 
taining truth only where causation is concerned ; 
the appropriate organs for its ascertainment where 
anything else is concerned belong to the moral 
and spiritual region. 

As Herbert Spencer says, *men of science 
may be divided into two classes, of which the one, 
well exemplified by Faraday, keeping their reli- 
gion and their science absolutely separate, are 
unperplexed by any incongruities between them, 
and the other of which, occupying themselves 
exclusively with the facts of science, never ask 
what implications they have. Be it trilobite or 
be it double star, their thought about it is much 
like the thought of Peter Bell about the prim- 
rose.'^ Now, both these classes are logical, since 

^Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1894. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 119 

both, as to their religion, adopt an attitude of 
pure agnosticism, not only in theory, but also in 
practice. What, however, have we to say of the 
third class, which Spencer does not mention, 
although it is, I think, the largest, viz. of those 
scientific men who expressly abstain from draw- 
ing a line of division between science and reli- 
gion [and then judge of religion purely on the 
principles and by the method of science]?^ 

There are two opposite casts of mind — the 
mechanical (scientific, &c.) and the spiritual 
(artistic, religious, &c.). These may alternate 
even in the same individual. An * agnostic' has 
no hesitation — even though he himself keenly 
experience the latter — that the former only is 
worthy of trust. But 2. pure agnostic must know 
better, as he will perceive that there is nothing to 
choose between the two in point of trustworthi- 
ness. Indeed, if choice has to be made, the 
mystic might claim higher authority for his direct 
intuitions. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said, in the 
opening section of his Synthetic Philosophy, that 
wherever human thought appears to be radically 
divided, [there must be truth on both sides and 
that the] * reconciliation' of opposing views is to 

* [Some such phrase is necessary to complete the sentence. — 
Ed.] 



120 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

be found by emphasizing that ultimate element 
of truth which on each side underlies manifold 
differences. More than is generally supposed 
depends on points of view, especially where first 
principles of a subject are in dispute. Opposite 
sides of the same shield may present wholly dif- 
ferent aspects.^ Spencer alludes to this with spe- 
cial reference to the conflict between science and 
religion ; and it is in this same connexion that I 
also allude to it. For it seems to me, after many 
years of thought upon the subject, that the 
'reconciliation' admits of being carried much fur- 
ther than it has been by him. For he effects this 
reconciliation only to the extent of showing that 
religion arises from the recognition of funda- 
mental mystery — which it may be proved that 
science also recognizes in all her fundamental 
ideas. This, however, is after all little more than 
a platitude. That our ultimate scientific ideas 
(i. e. ultimate grounds of experience) are inex- 
plicable, is a proposition which is self-evident 
since the dawn of human thought. My aim is to 
carry the * reconciliation' into much more detail 
and yet without quitting the grounds of pure rea- 
son. I intend to take science and religion in 
their present highly developed states as such and 
show that on a systematic examination of the lat- 
ter by the methods of the former, the * conflict' 
between the two may be not merely 'reconciled' 

'^ First Principles, Parti, ch, I. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 12I 

as regards the highest generalities of each, but 
entirely abolished in all matters of detail which 
can be regarded as of any great importance. 

In any methodical enquiry the first object 
should be to ascertain the fundamental principles 
with which the enquiry is concerned. In actual 
research, however, it is by no means always the 
case that the enquirer knows, or is able at first to 
ascertain what those principles are. In fact, it is 
often only at the end of a research, that they are 
discovered to be the fundamental principles. 
Such has been my own experience with regard to 
the subject of the present enquiry. Although all 
my thinking life has been concerned, off and on, 
in contemplating the problem of our religious 
instincts, the sundry attempts which have been 
made by mankind for securing their gratification, 
and the important question as to their objective 
justification, it is only in advanced years that I 
have clearly perceived wherein the first principles 
of such a research must consist. And I doubt 
whether any one has hitherto clearly defined this 
point. The principles in question are the nature 
of causation and the nature of faith. 

My objects then in this treatise are, mainly, 
three: ist, to purify agnosticism; 2nd, to con- 
sider more fully than heretofore, and from the 
stand-point of pure agnosticism, the nature of 



122 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

natural causation, or, more correctly, the relation 
of what we know on the subject of such causa- 
tion to the question of Theism ; and, 3rd, again 
starting from the same stand-point, to consider 
the religious consciousnesses of men as phenom- 
ena of experience (i. e. as regarded by us from 
without), and especially in their highest phase of 
development as exhibited in Christianity. 



§ 3. CAUSALITY. 

Only because we are so familiar with the 
great phenomenon of causality do we take it for 
granted, and think that we reach an ultimate 
explanation of anything when we have succeeded 
in finding the * cause' thereof: when, in point of 
fact, we have only succeeded in merging it in the 
mystery of mysteries. I often wish we could 
have come into the world, like the young of some 
other mammals, with all the powers of intellect 
that we shall ever subsquently attain already 
developed, but without any individual experience, 
and so without any of the blunting effects of 
custom. Could we have done so, surely nothing 
in the world would more acutely excite our intel- 
ligent astonishment than the one universal fact 
of causation. That everything which happens 
should have a cause, that this should invariably 
be proportioned to its effect, so that, no matter 
how complex the interaction of causes, the same 
interaction should always produce the same result ; 
that this rigidly exact system of energizing should 
be found to present all the appearances of uni- 
versality and of eternity, so that, e. g. the motion 
of the solar system in space is being determined 
by some causes beyond human ken, and that we 
are indebted to billions of cellular unions, each 

123 



124 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

involving billions of separate causes, for our 
hereditary passage from an invertebrate ancestry, 
— that such things should be, would surely strike 
us as the most wonderful fact in this wonderful 
universe. 

Now, although familiarity with this fact has 
made us forget its wonder to the extent of virtu- 
ally assuming that we know all about it, philo- 
sophical enquiry shows that, besides empirically 
knowing it to be a fact, we only know one other 
thing about it, viz. — that our knowledge of it is 
derived from our own activity when we ourselves 
are causes. No result of psychological analysis 
seems to me more certain than this.^ If it were 
not for our own volitions, we should be ignorant 
of what we can now not doubt, on pain of suicidal 
scepticism, to be the most general fact of nature. 
Such, at least, seems to me by far the most rea- 
sonable theory of our idea of causality, and is 
the one now most generally entertained by phil- 
osophers of every school. 

Now, to the plain man it will always seem 
that if our very notion of causality is derived 
from our own volition — as our very notion of 
energy is derived from our sense of effort in 
overcoming resistance by our volition — presum- 

' [Here it was intended to insert further explanation *show- 
ing that mere observation of causality in external nature would 
not have yielded idea of anything further than time and space 
relations.' — Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 125 

ably the truest notion we can form of that in 
which causation objectively consists is the notion 
derived from that known mode of existence 
which alone gives us the notion of causality at all. 
Hence the plain man will always infer that all 
energy is of the nature of will-energy, and all 
objective causation of the nature of subjective. 
Nor is this inference confined to the plain man ; 
the deepest philosophical thinkers have arrived 
at substantially the same opinion, e. g. Hegel, 
Schopenhauer. So that the direct and most 
natural interpretation of causality in external 
nature which is drawn by primitive thought in 
savages and young children, seems destined to 
become also the ultimate deliverance of human 
thought in the highest levels of its culture.^ 

But, be this as it may, we are not concerned 
with any such questions of abstract philosophical 
speculation. As pure agnostics they lie beyond 
our sphere. Therefore, I allude to them only for 
the sake of showing that there is nothing either 
in the science or philosophy of mankind inimical 
to the theory of natural causation being the ener- 
gizing of a will objective to us. And we can 
plainly see that if such be the case, and if that 
will be self-consistent, its operations, as revealed 

'[This theory was suggested in the Burney Essay, p. 136, 
and ridiculed in the Candid Examination; see above, p. 10. 
Romanes intended at this point to consider at greater length his 
old views *on causation as due to being qtia being.' — Ed.] 



126 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

in natural causation, must appear to us when con- 
sidered en bloc (or not piece-meal as by savages), 
non-volitional, or mechanical. 

Of all philosophical theories of causality the 
most repugnant to reason must be those of Hume, 
Kant and Mill, which while differing from one 
another agree in this — that they attribute the 
principle of causality to a creation of our own 
minds, or in other words deny that there is any- 
thing objective in the relation of cause and effect 

— i. e. in the very thing which all physical science 
is engaged in discovering in particular cases of it. 

The conflict of Science and Religion has 
always arisen from one common ground of agree- 
ment, or fundamental postulate of both parties 

— without which, indeed, it would plainly have 
been impossible that any conflict could have 
arisen, inasmuch as there would then have been 
no field for battle. Every thesis must rest on 
some hypothesis ; therefore, in cases where two 
or more rival theses rest on a common hypoth- 
esis, the disputes must needs collapse so soon as 
the common hypothesis is proved erroneous. 
And proportionably, in whatever degree the pre- 
viously common hypothesis is shown to be dubi- 
ous, in that degree are the disputations shown 
to be possibly unreal. Now, it is one of the 
main objects of this treatise to show that the 
common hypothesis on which all the disputes 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 127 

between Science and Religion have arisen is 
highly dubious. And not only so, but that quite 
apart from modern science all the difficulties on the 
side of intellect (or reason) which religious belief 
has ever encountered in the past, or can ever 
encounter in the future, whether in the individual 
or the race, arise, and arise exclusively, from the 
self-same ground of this highly dubious hypothesis. 

The hypothesis, or fundamental postulate, in 
question is. If there be a perso?ial God, He is not 
immediately coiiceriied with 7iatural causation. It is 
assumed that qua 'first cause,' He can in no way 
be concerned with * second causes,' further than 
by having started them in the first instance as a 
great machinery of * natural causation,' working 
under 'general laws.' True, the theory of Deism, 
which entertains more or less expressly this 
hypothesis of ' Deus ex machina,' has during the 
present century been more and more superseded 
by that of Theism, which entertains also in some 
indefinable measure the doctrine of ' immanence ; ' 
as well as by that of Pantheism, which expressly 
holds this doctrine to the exclusion in toto of its 
rival. But Theism has never yet entertained it 
sufficiently or up to the degree required by the 
pure logic of the case, while Pantheism has but 
rarely considered the rival doctrine of personal- 
ity — or the possible union of immanence with 
personality.^ 

" See, however, Aubrey Moore in Lux Mundi, pp. 94-96, and 



128 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

Now it is the object of this book to go much 
further than any one has hitherto gone in proving 
the possibility of this union. For I purpose to 
show that, provided only we lay aside all preju- 
dice, sentiment, &c., and follow to its logical 
termination the guidance of pure reason, there 
are no other conclusions to be reached than 
these. Namely, [A) That if there be a personal 
God, no reason can be assigned why He should 
not be immanent in nature, or why all causation 
should not be the immediate expression of His 
will. {B) That every available reason points to 
the inference that He probably is so. [C) That 
if He is so, and if His will is self-consistent, all 
natural causation must needs appear to us 
* mechanical.* Therefore [D) that it is no argu- 
ment against the divine origin of a thing, event, 
&c., to prove it due to natural causation. 

After having dealt briefly with {A)y [B) and 
{C)y I would show that [D) is the most practi- 
cally important of these four conclusions. For 
the fundamental hypothesis which I began by 
mentioning is just the opposite of this. Whether 
tacitly or expressed, it has always been assumed 
by both sides in the controversy between Science 
and Religion, that as soon as this, that and the 
other phenomenon has been explained by means 

Le Conte, Evolution i7i its Relation to Religious Thought, pp. 
335, ff. [N.B. The references not enclosed in brackets are the 
author's, not mine.— Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 129 

of natural causation, it has thereupon ceased to 
be ascribable [directly] to God. The distinction 
between the natural and the supernatural has 
always been regarded by both sides as indisput- 
ably sound, and this fundamental agreement as 
to ground of battle has furnished the only possi- 
ble condition to fighting. It has also furnished 
the condition of all the past, and may possibly 
furnish the condition of all the future, discomfit- 
ures of religion. True religion is indeed learn- 
ing her lesson that something is wrong in her 
method of fighting, and many of her soldiers are 
now waking up to the fact that it is here that her 
error lies — as in past times they woke up to see 
the error of denying the movement of the earth, 
the antiquity of the earth, the origin of species 
by evolution, &c. But no one, even of her cap- 
tains and generals, has so far followed up their 
advantage to its ultimate consequences. And 
this is what I want to do. The logical advantage 
is clearly on their side ; and it is their own fault 
if they do not gain the ultimate victory, — not 
only as against science, but as against intellectual 
dogmatism in every form. This can be routed 
all along the line. For science is only the organ- 
ized study of natural causation, and the experi- 
ence of every human being, in so far as it leads 
to dogmatism on purely intellectual grounds, does 
so on account of entertaining the fundamental 
postulate in question. The influence of custom 



130 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

and want of imagination is here very great. But 
the answer always should be to move the ulterior 
question — what is the nature of natural causation? 

Now I propose to push to its full logical con- 
clusion the consequence of this answer. For no 
one, even the most orthodox, has as yet learnt 
this lesson of religion to anything like fullness. 
God is still grudged His own universe, so to 
speak, as far and as often as He can possibly be. 
As examples we may take the natural growth of 
Christianity out of previous religions ; the natural 
spread of it ; the natural conversion of St. Paul, 
or of anybody else. It is still assumed on both 
sides that there must be something inexplicable 
or miraculous about a phenomenon in order to its 
being divine. 

What else have science and religion ever had 
to fight about save on the basis of this common 
hypothesis, and hence as to whether the causa- 
tion of such and such a phenomenon has been 
'natural' or 'super-natural.' For even the dis- 
putes as to science contradicting scripture, ulti- 
mately turn on the assumption of inspiration 
(supposing it genuine) being 'super-natural' as to 
its causation. Once grant that it is 'natural' and 
all possible ground of dispute is removed. 

I can well understand why infidelity should 
make the basal assumption in question, because 
its whole case must rest thereon. But surely it 
is time for theists to abandon this assumption. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 131 

The assumed distinction between causation as 
natural and super-natural no doubt began in 
superstition in prehistoric time, and throughout 
the historical period has continued from a vague 
feeling that the action of God must be mysteri- 
ous, and hence that the province of religion must 
be within the super-sensuous. Now, it is true 
enough that the finite cannot comprehend the 
infinite, and hence the feeling in question is log- 
ically sound. But under the influence of this 
feeling, men have always committed the fallacy 
of concluding that if a phenomenon has been 
explained in terms of natural causation, it has 
thereby been explained m toto — forgetting that it 
has only been explained up to the point where 
such causation is concerned, and that the real 
question of ultimate causation has merely been 
thus postponed. And assuredly beyond this 
point there is an infinitude of mystery sufficient 
to satisfy the most exacting mystic. For even 
Herbert Spencer allows that in ultimate analysis 
all natural causation is inexplicable. 

Logically regarded, the advance of science, 
far from having weakened religion, has immeasur- 
ably strengthened it. For it has proved the 
uniformity of natural causation. The so-called 
natural sphere has increased at the expense of the 
'super-natural.' Unquestionably. But although 
to lower grades of culture this always seems a 
fact inimical to religion, we may now perceive it 



132 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

is quite the reverse, since it merely goes to abolish 
the primitive or uncultured distinction in question. 

It is indeed most extraordinary how long this 
distinction has held sway, or how it is the ablest 
men of all generations have quietly assumed that 
when once we know the natural causation of any 
phenomenon, we therefore know all about it — or, 
as it were, have removed it from the sphere of 
mystery altogether, when, in point of fact, we 
have only merged it in a much greater mystery 
than ever. 

But the answer to our astonishment how this 
distinction has managed to survive so long lies in 
the extraordinary effect of custom, which here 
seems to slay reason altogether ; and the more a 
man busies himself with natural causes (e. g. in 
scientific research) the greater does this slavery 
to custom become, till at last he seems positively 
unable to perceive the real state of the case — 
regarding any rational thinking thereon as chi- 
merical, so that the term *meta-physical,* even in 
its etymological sense as super-sensuous or beyond 
physical causation, becomes a term of rational 
reproach. Obviously such a man has written 
himself down, if not an ass, at all events a crea- 
ture wholly incapable of rationally treating any 
of the highest problems presented either by 
nature or by man. 

On any logical theory of Theism there can be 
no such distinction between 'natural' and * super- 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 133 

natural' as is usually drawn, since on that theory 
all causation is but the action of the Divine Will. 
And if we draw any distinction between such 
action as * immediate' or * mediate/ we can only 
mean this as valid in relation to mankind — i. e. 
in relation to our experience. For, obviously, it 
would be wholly incompatible with pure agnosti- 
cism to suppose that we are capable of drawing 
any such distinction in relation to the Divine 
activity itself. Even apart from the theory of 
Theism, pure agnosticism must take it that the 
real distinction is not between natural and super- 
natural, but between the explicable and the 
inexplicable — meaning by those terms that which 
is and that which is not accountable by such 
causes as fall within the range of human observa- 
tion. Or, in other words, the distinction is really 
between the observable and the unobservable 
causal processes of the universe. 

Although science is essentially engaged in 
explaining, her work is necessarily confined to the 
sphere of natural causation ; beyond that sphere 
(i. e. the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In 
other words, even if she were able to explain the 
natural causation of everything, she would be 
unable to assign the ultimate raison detre of 
anything. 

It is not my intention to write an essay on the 
nature of causality, or even to attempt a survey 



134 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of the sundry theories which have been pro- 
pounded on this subject by philosophers. Indeed, 
to attempt this would be little less than to write 
a history of philosophy itself. Nevertheless it is 
necessary for my purpose to make a few remarks 
touching the main branches of thought upon the 
matter.^ 

The remarkable nature of the facts. These are 
remarkable, since they are common to all human 
experience. Everything that happens has a cause. 
The same happening has always the same cause 
— or the same consequent the same antecedent. 
It is only familiarity with this great fact that 
prevents universal wonder at it, for, notwithstand- 
ing all the theories upon it, no one has ever really 
shown why it is so. That the same causes always 
produce the same effects is a proposition which 
expresses a fundamental fact of our knowledge, 
but the knowledge of this fact is purely empirical ; 
we can show no reason why it should be a fact. 
Doubtless, if it were not a fact, there could be no 
so-called * Order of Nature,* and consequently no 
science, no philosophy, or perhaps (if the irreg- 
ularity were sufficiently frequent) no possibility 
of human experience. But although this is easy 
enough to show, it in no wise tends to show why 
the same causes should always produce the same 
effects. 

^ [Nothing more however was written than what follows 
immediately. — Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 135 

So manifest is it that our knowledge of the 
fact in question is only empirical, that some of 
our ablest thinkers, such as Hume and Mill, have 
failed to perceive even so much as the intel- 
lectual necessity of looking beyond our empirical 
knowledge of the fact to gain any explanation of 
the fact itself. Therefore they give to the world 
the wholly vacuous, or merely tautological theory 
of causation — viz. that of constancy of sequence 
within human observation.' 

If it be said of my argument touching caus- 
ality, that it is naturalizing or materializing the 
super-natural or spiritual (as most orthodox 
persons will feel), my reply is that deeper 
thought will show it to be at least as susceptible 
of the opposite view — viz. that it is subsuming 
the natural into the super-natural, or spiritualizing 
the material : and a pure agnostic, least of all, 
should have anything to say as against either of 
these alternative points of view. Or we may 
state the matter thus : in as far as pure reason 
can have anything to say in the matter, she 
ought to incline towards the view of my doctrine 
spiritualizing the material, because it is pretty 
certain that we could know nothing about natural 

'[The author intended further to show the vacuity of this 
theory and point out how Mill himself appears to perceive it by 
his introduction after the term * invariably' of the term 'uncon- 
ditionally;' he refers also to Martineau, Study of Religion y i. pp. 
152, 3.— Ed.] 



136 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

causation — even so much as its existence — but 
for our own volitions. 

FREE WILL.^ 

Having read all that is said to be worth read- 
ing on the Free Will controversy, it appears to 
me that the main issues and their logical conclu- 
sions admit of being summed up in a very few 
words, thus : — 

1. A writer, before he undertakes to deal with 
this subject at all, should be conscious of fully 
perceiving the fundamental distinction between 
responsibility as merely legal and as also moral ; 
otherwise he cannot but miss the very essence of 
the question in debate. No one questions the 
patent fact of responsibility as legal ; the only 
question is touching responsibility as moral. Yet 
the principal bulk of literature on Free Will and 
Necessity arises from disputants on both sides 
failing to perceive this basal distinction. Even 
such able writers as Spencer, Huxley and Clifford 
are in this position. 

2. The root question is as to whether the will 
is caused or un-caused. For however much this 
root-question may be obscured by its own abun- 
dant foliage, the latter can have no existence but 
that which it derives from the former. 

'[This Note on Free Will is exceedingly incomplete and con- 
sequently obscure. But it seemed to me on the whole to be 
sufficiently intelligible to admit of publication.— Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 137 

3. Consequently, if libertarians grant causality 
as appertaining to the will, however much they 
may beat about the bush, they are surrendering 
their position all along the line, unless they fall 
back upon the more ultimate question as to the 
nature of natural causation. Now it can be 
proved that this more ultimate question is [scien- 
tifically] unanswerable. Therefore both sides 
may denominate natural causation x — an unknown 
quantity. 

4. Hence the whole controversy ought to be 
seen by both sides to resolve itself into this — is 
or is not the will determined by ;i:? And, if this 
seems but a barren question to debate, I do not 
undertake to deny the fact. At the same time 
there is clearly this real issue remaining — viz. Is 
the will self-determining, or is it determined — i. e. 
from ivithout? 

5. If determined from without, is there any 
room for freedom, in the sense required for sav- 
ing the doctrine of moral responsibility ? And I 
think the answer to this must be an unconditional 
negative. 

6. But, observe, it is not one and the same 
thing to ask, Is the will entirely determined from 
without ? and Is the will entirely determined by 
natural causation {^x) ? For the unknown quan- 
tity X may very well include x^ , if by x^ we under- 
stand all the unknown ingredients of per- 
sonality. 



138 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

7. Hence, determinists gain no advantage over 
their adversaries by any possible proof (at pres- 
ent impossible) that all acts of will are due to 
natural causation, unless they can show the nature 
of the latter, and that it is of such nature as sup- 
ports their conclusion. For aught we at present 
know, the will may very well be free in the sense 
required, even though all its acts are due to x, 

8. In particular, for aught we know to the 
contrary, all may be due to x' ^ i. e. all causation 
may be of the nature of will (as, indeed, many 
systems of philosophy maintain), with the result 
that every human will is of the nature of a First 
Cause. In support of which possibility it maybe 
remarked that most philosophies are led to the 
theory of a causa causarum as regards x. 

9. To the obvious objection that with a plu- 
rality of first causes — each the fons et origo of a 
new and never-ending stream of causality — the 
cosmos must sooner or later become a chaos by 
cumulative intersection of the streams, the answer 
is to be found in the theory of monism.'' 

10. Nevertheless, the ultimate difficulty 
remains which is depicted in my essay on the 
* World as an Eject.' ^ But this, again, is merged 

* [See above, p. 32. — Ed.] 

^ Contemporary Reviezv, ]M\y, i^^t. [But the 'ultimate diffi- 
culty' referred to above would seem to be the relation of manifold 
dependent human wills to the One Ultimate and All-embracing 
Will.— Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 139 

in the mystery of Personality, which is only 
known as an inexplicable, and seemingly ulti- 
mate fact. 

II. So that the general conclusion of the 
whole matter must be — pure agnosticism. 



§ 4. FAITH. 

Faith in its religious sense is distinguished not 
only from opinion (or belief founded on reason 
alone), in that it contains a spiritual element; it 
is further distinguished from belief founded on 
the affections, by needing an active co-operation 
of the will. Thus all parts of the human mind 
have to be involved in faith — intellect, emotions, 
will. We * believe' in the theory of evolution on 
grounds of reason alone; we * believe' in the 
affection of our parents, children, &c., almost (or 
it may be exclusively) on what I have called 
spiritual grounds — i. e. on grounds of spiritual 
experience ; for this we need no exercise either 
of reason or of will. But no one can * believe' 
in God, or a fortiori in Christ, without also a 
severe effort of will. This I hold to be a matter 
of fact, whether or not there be a God or a Christ. 

Observe will is to be distinguished from desire. 
It matters not what psychologists may have to 
say upon this subject. Whether desire differs from 
will in kind or only in degree — whether will is 
desire in action, so to speak, and desire but incipi- 
ent will — are questions with which we need not 
trouble ourselves. For it is certain that there 
are agnostics who would greatly prefer being the- 

140 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 141 

ists, and theists who would give all they possess 
to be Christians, if they could thus secure pro- 
motion by purchase — i. e. by one single act of 
will. But yet the desire is not strong enough to 
sustain the will in perpetual action, so as to make 
the continual sacrifices which Christianity entails. 
Perhaps the hardest of these sacrifices to an 
intelligent man is that to his own intellect. At 
least I am certain that this is so in my own case. 
I have been so long accustomed to constitute my 
reason my sole judge of truth, that even while 
reason itself tells me it is not unreasonable to 
expect that the heart and the will should be 
required to join with reason in seeking God (for 
religion is for the whole man), I am too jealous 
of my reason to exercise my will in the direction 
of my most heart-felt desires. For assuredly the 
strongest desire of my nature is to find that that 
nature is not deceived in its highest aspirations. 
Yet I cannot bring myself so much as to make 
a venture in the direction of faith. For instance, 
regarded from one point of view it seems reason- 
able enough that Christianity should have enjoined 
the doing of the doctrine as a necessary condition 
to ascertaining (i. e. * believing') its truth. But 
from another, and my more habitual point of view, 
it seems almost an affront to reason to make 
any such * fool's experiment' — just as to some 
scientific men it seems absurd and childish to ex- 
pect them to investigate the * superstitious ' follies 



142 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of modern spiritualism. Even the simplest act 
of will in regard to religion — that of prayer — 
has not been performed by me for at least a 
quarter of a century, simply because it has seemed 
so impossible to pray, as it were, hypothetically, 
that much as I have always desired to be able to 
pray, I cannot will the attempt. To justify 
myself for what my better judgment has often 
seen to be essentially irrational, I have ever made 
sundry excuses. The chief of them has run thus. 
Even supposing Christianity true, and even sup- 
posing that after having so far sacrificed my reason 
to my desire as to have satisfied the supposed 
conditions to obtaining 'grace' or direct illumi- 
nation from God, — even then would not my reason 
turn round and revenge herself upon me ? For 
surely even then my habitual scepticism would 
make me say to myself — 'this is all very sublime 
and very comforting ; but what evidence have 
you to give me that the whole business is any- 
thing more than self-delusion ? The wish was 
probably father to the thought, and you might 
much better have performed your "act of will " by 
going in for a course of Indian hemp.' Of course 
a Christian would answer to this that the internal 
light would not admit of such doubt, any more 
than seeing the sun does — that God knows us well 
enough to prevent that, &c., and also that it is 
unreasonable not to try an experiment lest the 
result should prove too good to be credible and 



A caindid examination OF rp:ligion. 143 

so on. And I do not dispute that the Christian 
would be justified in so answering, but I only 
adduce the matter as an illustration of the dif- 
ficulty which is experienced in conforming to all 
the conditions of attaining to Christian faith — 
even supposing it to be sound. Others have 
doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I 
think, that of an undue regard to reason, as 
against heart and will — undue, I mean, if so it be 
that Christianity is true, and the conditions to 
faith in it have been of divine ordination. 

This influence of will on belief, even in matters 
secular, is the more pronounced the further re- 
moved these matters may be from demonstration 
(as already remarked); but this is most of all the 
case where our personal interests are affected — 
whether these be material or intellectual, such as 
credit for consistency, &c. See, for example, how 
closely, in the respects we are considering, polit- 
ical beliefs resemble religious. Unless the points 
of difference are such^ that truth is virtually 
demonstrable on one side, so that adhesion to the 
opposite is due to conscious sacrifice of integrity 
to expedienc}^, we always find that party-spec- 
tacles so colour the view as to leave reason at the 
mercy of will, custom, interest, and all the other 
circumstances which similarly operate on religious 
beliefs. It seems to make but little difference 
in either case what level of general education, 
mental power, special training, &c., is brought to 



144 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

bear upon the question under judgment. From 
the Premier to the peasant we find the same dif- 
ference of opinion in politics as we do in religion. 
And in each case the explanation is the same. 
Beliefs are so little dependent on reason alone 
that in such regions of thought — i. e. where per- 
sonal interests are affected and the evidences of 
truth are not in their nature demonstrable — it 
really seems as if reason ceases to be a judge 
of evidence or guide to truth, and becomes a 
mere advocate of opinion already formed on 
quite other grounds. Now these other grounds 
are, as we have seen, mainly the accidents of 
habits or custom, wish being father to the 
thought, &c. 

Now this may be all deplorable enough in 
politics, and in all other beliefs secular ; but who 
shall say it is not exactly as it ought to be in 
the matter of beliefs religious? For, unless we 
beg the question of a future life in the negative, 
we must entertain at least the possibility of our 
being in a state of probation in respect of an 
honest use not only of our reason, but probably 
still more of those other ingredients of human 
nature which go to determine our beliefs touching 
this most important of all matters. 

It is remarkable how even in politics it is the 
moral and spiritual elements of character which 
lead to success in the long run, even more than 
intellectual ability — supposing, of course, that 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 145 

the latter is not below the somewhat high level of 
our Parliamentary assemblies. 

As regards the part that is played by will in the 
determining of belief, one can show how uncon- 
sciously large this is even in matters of secular 
interest. Reason is very far indeed from being 
the sole guide of judgment that it is usually 
taken to be — so far, indeed, that, save in matters 
approaching down-right demonstration where (of 
course there is no room for any other ingredient) 
it is usually hampered by custom, prejudice, dis- 
like, &c., to a degree that would astonish the most 
sober philosopher could he lay bare to himself all 
the mental processes whereby the complex act of 
assent or dissent is eventually determined.^ 

'Cf. Pascal, Pensees, *For we must not mistake ourselves, 
we have as much that is automatic in us as intellectual, and 
hence it comes that the instrument by which persuasion is brought 
about is not demonstration alone. How few things are demon- 
strated ! Proofs can only convince the mind ; custom makes our 
strongest proofs, and those which we hold most firmly, it sways 
the automaton, which draws the unconscious intellect after it. . . 
It is then custom that makes so many men Christians, custom that 
makes them Turks, heathen, artisans, soldiers, &c. Lastly we 
must resort to custom when once the mind has seen where truth is, 
in order to slake our thirst and steep ourselves in that belief which 
escapes us at every hour, for to have proofs always at hand were 
too onerous. We must acquire a more easy belief, that of custom, 
which without violence, without art, without argument, causes our 
assent and inclines all our powers to this belief, so that our soul 
naturally falls into it. . . . 

* It is not enough to believe only by force of conviction if the 
automaton is inclined to believe the contrary. Both parts of us 
then must be obliged to believe, the intellect by arguments which 



146 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

As showing how little reason alone has to do 
with the determining of religious belief, let us 
take the case of mathematicians. This I think 
is the fairest case we can take, seeing that of all 
intellectual pursuits that of mathematical research 
is the most exact, as well as the most exclusive 
in its demand upon the powers of reason, and 
hence that, as a class, the men who have achieve., 
highest eminence in that pursuit may be fairl}^ 
taken as the fittest representatives of our species 
in respect to the faculty of pure reason. Yet 
whenever they have turned their exceptional 
powers in this respect upon the problems of reli- 
gion, how suggestively well balanced are their 
opposite conclusions — so much so indeed that 
w^e can only conclude that reason counts for very 
little in the complex of mental processes which 
here determine judgment. 

Thus, if we look to the greatest mathematicians 
in the world's history, we find Kepler and Newton 
as Christians ; La Place, on the other hand, an 
infidel. Or, coming to our own times, and con- 
fining our attention to the principal seat of mathe- 
matical study: — v/hen I was at Cambridge, there 
was a galaxy of genius in that department emanat- 
ing from that place such as had never before been 

it is enough to have admitted once in our lives, the automaton by 
custom, and by not allowing it to incline in the contrary direction. 
Inclina cor 7neti7Ji Deus.'' See also Newman's Grammar of 
Assent f chap. vi. and Church's Human Life and its Conditions^ 
pp. 67-9. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 14? 

equalled. And the curious thing in our present 
connexion is that all the most illustrious names 
were ranged on the side of orthodoxy. Sir W. 
Thomson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, 
Adams, Clerk-Maxwell, and Cayley — not to men- 
tion a number of lesser lights, such as Routh, 
Todhunter, Ferrers, &c. — were all avowed Chris- 
tians. Clifford had only just moved at a bound 
from the extreme of asceticism to that of infidelity 
— an individual instance which I deem of particu- 
lar interest in the present connexion, as showing 
the dominating influence of a forcedly emotional 
character even on so powerful an intellectual one, 
for the rationality of the whole structure of Chris- 
tian belief cannot have so reversed its poles within 
a few months. 

Now it would doubtless be easy to find else- 
where than in Cambridge mathematicians of the 
first order who in our own generation are, or have 
been, professedly anti-Christian in their beliefs, — 
although certainly not so great an array of such 
extraordinary powers. But, be this as it may, the 
case of Cambridge in my own time seems to me 
of itself enough to prove that Christian belief is 
neither made nor marred by the highest powers of 
reasoning, apart from other and still more potent 
factors. 

FAITH AND SUPERSTITION. 

Whether or not Christianity is true, there is 
a great distinction betw^een these two things. For 



148 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

while the main ingredient of Christian faith is the 
moral element, this has no part in superstition. 
In point of fact, the onl}^ point of resemblance is 
that both present the mental state called belief. 
It is on this account they are so often confounded 
by anti-Christians, and even by non-Christians ; 
the much more important point of difference is not 
noted, viz. that belief in the one case is purely 
intellectual, while in the other it is chiefly moral. 
Qua purely intellectual, belief may indicate noth- 
ing but sheer credulity in absence of evidence ; 
but where a moral basis is added, the case is 
clearly different ; for even if it appears to be sheer 
credulity to an outsider, that may be because he 
does not take into account the additional evidence 
supplied by the moral facts. 

Faith and superstition are often confounded, 
or even identified. And, unquestionably, they 
are identical up to a certain point — viz. they both 
present the mental state of belief. All people can 
see this ; but not all people can see further, or 
define the differentiae. These are as follows : 
First, supposing Christianity true, there is the 
spiritual verification. Second, supposing Chris- 
tianity false, there is still the moral ingredient, 
which ex hypothesi is absent in superstition. In 
other words, both faith and superstition rest on 
an intellectual basis (which may be pure credulity ) ; 
but faith rests also on a moral, even if not like- 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. MQ 

wise on a spiritual. Even in human relations there 
is a wide difference between 'belief in a scientific 
theory and * faith ' in a personal character. And 
the difference is in the latter comprising a moral 
element. 

'Faith-healing/ therefore, has no real point of 
resemblance with * thy faith hath saved thee ' of 
the New Testament, unless we sink the personal 
differences between a modern faith-healer and 
Jesus Christ as objects of faith. 

Belief is not exclusively founded on objective 
evidence appealing to reason (opinion), but 
mainly on subjective evidence appealing to some 
altogether different faculty (faith) . Now, whether 
Christians are right or wrong in what they believe, 
I hold it as certain as anything can be that the 
distinction which I have just drawn, and which 
they all implicitly draw for themselves, is log- 
ically valid. For no one is entitled to deny the 
possibility of what may be termed an organ of 
spiritual discernment. In fact to do so would be 
to vacate the position of pure agnosticism in toto 
— and this even if there were no objective, or 
strictly scientific, evidences in favour of such an 
organ, such as we have in the lives of the saints, 
and in a lower degree, in the universality of the 
religious sentiment. Now, if there be such an 
organ, it follows from preceding paragraphs, that 
not only will the main evidences for Christianity 
be subjective, but that they ought to be so : they 



ISO THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

ought to be so, I mean, on the Christian suppo- 
sition of the object of Christianity being moral 
probation, and * faith' both the test and the 
reward. 

From this many practical considerations ensue. 
E.g. the duty of parents to educate their children 
in what they believe as distinguished from what 
they know. This would be unjustifiable if faith 
were the same as opinion. But it is fully justifi- 
able if a man not only knows that he believes 
(opinion) but believes that he knows (faith). 
Whether or not the Christian differs from the 
* natural man' in having a spiritual organ of 
cognition, provided he honestly believes such is 
the case, it would be immoral in him not to 
proceed in accordance with what he thus believes 
to be his knowledge. This obligation is recognized 
in education in every other case. He is morally 
right even if mentally deluded. 

Huxley, in Lay Sermo7is, says that faith has 
been proved a* cardinal sin' by science. Now, 
this is true enough of credulity, superstition, &c., 
and science has done no end of good in develop- 
ing our ideas of method, evidence, &c. But this 
is all on the side of intellect. * Faith ' is not 
touched by such facts or considerations. And 
what a terrible hell science would have made of 
the world, if she had abolished the * spirit of faith ' 
even in human relations. The fact is, Huxley 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 151 

falls into the common error of identifying * faith ' 
with opinion. 



Supposing Christianity true, it is very reason- 
able that faith in the sense already explained 
should be constituted the test of divine acceptance. 
If there be such a thing as Christ^s winnowing 
fan, the quality of sterling weight for the dis- 
covery of which it is adapted cannot be conceived 
as anything other than this moral quality. No 
one could suppose a revelation appealing to the 
mere intellect of man, since acceptance would thus 
become a mere matter of prudence in subscribing 
to a demonstration made by higher intellects. 

It is also a matter of fact that if Christianity 
is truthful in representing this world as a school 
of moral probation, we cannot conceive a system 
better adapted to this end than is the world, or 
a better schoolmaster than Christianity. This is 
proved not only by general reasoning, but also 
by the work of Christianity in the world, its 
adaptation to individual needs, &c. Consider also 
the extraordinary diversity of human characters 
in respect both of morality and spirituality though 
all are living in the same world. Out of the same 
external material or environment such astonish- 
ingly diverse products arise according to the use 
made of it. Even human suffering in its worst 
forms can be welcome if justified by faith in such 



152 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

an object." *Ills have no weight, and tears no 
bitterness/ but are rather to be 'gloried in\' 

It is a further fact that only by means of this 
theory of probation is it possible to give any mean- 
ing to the world, i. e. any raison d'etre of human 
existence. 

Supposing Christianity true, every man must 
stand or fall by the results of his own conduct, as 
developed through his own moral character. 
(This could not be so if the test were intellectual 
ability.) Yet this does not hinder that the exer- 
cise of will in the direction of religion should need 
help in order to attain belief. Nor does it hinder 
that some men should need more help and others 
less. Indeed, it may well be that some men are 
intentionally precluded from receiving any help, 
so as not to increase their responsibility, or receive 
but little, so as to constitute intellectual difficulties 
a moral trial. But clearly, if such things are so, 
we are inadequate judges. 

It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual part 
of man to be 'higher' than the animal, whatever 
our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all 
feel the moral part of man to be * higher ' than the 
intellectual, whatever our theory of either may be. 
It is also a fact that we all similarly feel the 

^[The author has added, *'For suffering in brutes see further 
on," but nothing further on the subject appears to have been 
written.-ED.] 



Human 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 153 

spiritual to be * higher' than the moral, whatever 
our theory of religion may be. It is what we 
understand by man's moral, and still more his 
spiritual, qualities that go to constitute ' character. 
And it is astonishing how in all walks of life it 
is character that tells in the long run. 

It is a fact that these distinctions are all well 
marked and universally recognized — viz. 

" Animality. 
Intellectuality. 
Morality. 
^Spirituality. 

Morality and spirituality are to be distinguished 
as two very different things. A man may be 
highly moral in his conduct without being in any 
degree spiritual in his nature, and, though to 
a lesser extent, vice versa. And, objectively, we 
see the same distinction between morals and reli- 
gion. By spirituality I mean the religious tem- 
perament, whether or not associated with any par- 
ticular creed or dogma. 

There is no doubt that intellectual pleasures 
are more satisfying and enduring than sensual — 
or even sensuous. And, to those who have experi- 
enced them, so it is with spiritual over intellectual, 
artistic, &c. This is an objective fact, abundantly 
testified to by every one who has had experience : 
and it seems to indicate that the spiritual nature 
of man is the highest part of man — the [culmi- 
nating] point of his being. 



154 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

It is probably true, as Renan says in his post- 
humous work, that there will always be material- 
ists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will always 
be observable on the one hand that there is no 
thought without brain, while, on the other hand, 
instincts of man will always aspire to higher 
beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if reli- 
gion is true, and we are in a state of probation. 
And is it not probable that the materialistic posi- 
tion (discredited even by philosophy) is due sim- 
ply to custom and want of imagination? Else 
why the inextinguishable instincts? 

It is much more easy to disbelieve than to 
believe. This is obvious on the side of reason, 
but it is also true on that of spirit, for to disbe- 
lieve is in accordance with environment or custom, 
while to believe necessitates a spiritual use of the 
imagination. For both these reasons, very few 
unbelievers have any justification, either intellec- 
tual or spiritual, for their own unbelief. 

Unbelief is usually due to indolence, often to 
prejudice, and never a thing to be proud of. 

*Why should it be thought a thing incredible 
with you that God should raise the dead?* Clearly 
no answer can be given by the pure agnostic. 
But he will naturally say in reply, 'the question 
rather is, why should it be thought credible with 
you that there is a God, or, if there is, that he 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 155 

should raise the dead?' And I think the wise 
Christian will answer, * I believe in the resurrec- 
tion of the dead, partly on grounds of reason, 
partly on those of intuition, but chiefly on both 
combined ; so to speak, it is my whole character 
which accepts the whole system of which the 
doctrine of personal immortality forms an essen- 
tial part/ And to this it may be fairly added 
that the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of 
our bodily form cannot have been arrived at for 
the purpose of meeting modern materialistic 
objections to the doctrine of personal immortality; 
hence it is certainly a strange doctrine to have been 
propounded at that time, together w^ith its com- 
panion, and scarcely less distinctive, doctrine of 
the vileness of the body. Why was it not said 
that the 'soul' alone should survive as a disem- 
bodied * spirit? ' Or if form were supposed neces- 
sary for man as distinguished from God, that he 
was to be an angel? But, be this as it may, the 
doctrine of the resurrection seems to have fully 
met beforehand the materialistic objection to a 
future life, and so to have raised the ulterior ques- 
tion with which this paragraph opens. 

We have seen in the Introduction that all first 
principles even of scientific facts are known by 
intuition and not by reason. No one can deny 
this. Now, if there be a God, the fact is certainly 
of the nature of a first principle ; for it must be 



156 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the first of all first principles. No one can dispute 
this. No one can therefore dispute the necessary 
conclusion, that, if there be a God, He is knowable 
(if knowable at all) by intuition and not by reason. 

Indeed a little thought is enough to show that 
from its very nature as such, reason must be 
incapable of adjudicating on the subject, for it is 
a process of inferring from the known to the un- 
known. 

Or thus. It would be against reason itself to 
suppose that God, even if He exists, can be 
known by reason ; He must be known, if knowa- 
ble at all, by intuition.' 

Observe, although God might give an objec- 
tive revelation of Himself, e. g. as Christians 
believe He has, even this would not give knowl- 
edge of Him save to those who believe the revela- 
tions genuine ; and I doubt whether it is logically 
possible for any form of objective revelation of 
itself to compel belief in it. Assuredly one rising 
from the dead to testify thereto would not, nor 
would letters of fire across the sky do so. But, 
even if it were logically possible, we need not 
consider the abstract possibility, seeing that, as a 
matter of fact, no such demonstrative revelation 
has been given. 

' [In this connexion I may again notice that two days before 
his death George Romanes expressed his cordial approval of Pro- 
fessor Knight's Aspects of Theism — a work in which great stress is 
laid on the argument from intuition in different forms. — Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 157 

Hence, the only legitimate attitude of pure 
reason is pure agnosticism. No one can deny 
this. But, it will be said, there is this vast differ- 
ence between our intuitive knowledge of all other 
first principles and that alleged of the ' first of all 
first principles,' viz. that the latter is confessedly 
?iot known to all men. Now, assuredly, there is 
here a vast difference. But so there ought to be, 
if we are here in a state of probation, as before 
explained. And that we are in such a state is not 
only the hypothesis of religion, but the sole 
rational explanation as well as moral justification of 
our existence as rational beings and moral agents.^ 

It is not necessarily true, as J. S. Mill and all 
other agnostics think, that even if internal intui- 
tion be of divine origin, the illumination thus 
furnished can only be of evidential value to the 
individual subject thereof. On the contrary, it 
may be studied objectively, even if not experi- 
enced subjectively ; and ought to be so studied 
by a pure agnostic desirous of light from any 
quarter. Even if he does not know it as a 
noumenon he can investigate it as a phenomenon. 
And, supposing it to be of divine origin, as its 
subjects believe and he has no reason to doubt, 
he may gain much evidence against its being a 
mere psychological illusion from identical reports 
of it in all ages. Thus, if any large section of the 

^On this subject see Pascal, Pciisces (Kegan Paul's trans.) 
p. 103. 



158 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

race were to see flames issuing from magnets, 
there would be no doubt as to their objective 
reahty. 

The testimony given by Socrates to the occur- 
rence in himself of an internal Voice, having all 
the definiteness of an auditory hallucination, has 
given rise to much speculation by subsequent 
philosophers. 

Many explanations are suggested, but if we 
remember the critical nature of Socrates' own 
mind, the literal nature of his mode of teaching, 
and the high authority which attaches to Plato's 
opinion on the subject, the probability seems to 
incline towards the 'Demon' having been, in 
Socrates' own consciousness, an actual auditory 
sensation. Be this however as it may, I suppose 
there is no question that we may adopt this view 
of the matter at least to the extent of classifying 
Socrates with Luther, Pascal, &c., not to mention 
all the line of Hebrew and other prophets, who 
agree in speaking of a Divine Voice. 

If so, the further question arises whether we 
are to classify all these with lunatics in whom the 
phenomena of auditory hallucination are habitual. 

Without doubt this hypothesis is most in 
accordance with the temper of our age, partly 
because it obe3"s the law of parsimony, and partly 
because it [negatives] a priori the possibility of 
revelation. 



\ 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 159 

But if we look at the matter from the point of 
view of pure agnosticism, we are not entitled to 
adopt so rough and ready an interpretation. 

Suppose then that not only Socrates and all 
great religious reformers and founders of religious 
systems both before and after him were similarly 
stricken with mental disease, but that similar 
phenomena had occurred in the case of all scien- 
tific discoverers such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, 
&c. — supposing all these men to have declared 
that their main ideas had been communicated by 
subjective sensations as of spoken language, so 
that all the progress of the world's scientific 
thought had resembled that of the world's reli- 
gious thought, and had been attributed by the 
promoters thereof to direct inspirations of this 
kind — would it be possible to deny that the testi- 
mony thus afforded to the fact of subjective reve- 
lation would have been overwhelming ? Or could 
it any longer have been maintained that suppos- 
ing a revelation to be communicated subjectively 
the fact thereof could only be of any evidential 
value to the recipient himself ? To this it will no 
doubt be answered, *No,but in the case supposed 
the evidence arises not from the fact of their 
subjective intuition but from that of its objective 
verification in the results of science/ Quite so ; 
but this is exactly the test appealed to by the 
Hebrew prophets — the test of true and lying 
prophets being in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment 



l6o THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of their prophecies and * By their fruits ye shall 
know them/ 

Therefore it is as absurd to say that the reli- 
gious consciousness of minds other than our own 
can be barred antecedently as evidence, as it is 
to say that testimony to the miraculous is simi- 
larly barred. The pure agnostic must always 
carefully avoid the 'high priori road,' But, on 
the other hand, he must be all the more assiduous 
in estimating fairly the character, both as to 
quantity and quality, of evidence a posteriori. 
Now this evidence in the present case is twofold, 
positive and negative. It will be convenient to 
consider the negative first. 

The negative evidence is furnished by the 
nature of man without God. It is thoroughly 
miserable, as is well shown by Pascal, who has 
devoted the whole of the first part of his treatise 
to this subject. I need not go over the ground 
which he has already so well traversed. 

Some men are not conscious of the cause of 
this misery : this, hovv^ever, does not prevent the 
fact of their being miserable. For the most 
part they conceal the fact as well as possible 
from themselves, by occupying their minds with 
society, sport, frivolity of all kinds, or, if intel- 
lectually disposed, with science, art, literature, 
business, &c. This however is but to fill the 
starving belly with husks. I know from experi- 
ence the intellectual distractions of scientific 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. i6l 

research, philosophical speculation, and artistic 
pleasures ; but am also well aware that even when 
all are taken together and well sweetened to 
taste, in respect of consequent reputation, means, 
social position, &c., the whole concoction is but 
as high confectionery to a starving man. He 
may cheat himself for a time — especiall}^ if he 
be a strong man — into the belief that he is nour- 
ishing himself by denying his natural appetite ; 
but soon finds he w^as made for some altogether 
different kind of food, even though of much less 
tastefulness as far as the palate is concerned. 

Some men indeed never acknowledQ^e this 
articulately or distinctly even to themselves, yet 
always show it plainly enough to others. Take, 
e. g. *that last infirmity of noble minds.' I sup- 
pose the most exalted and least 'carnal' of 
worldly joys consists in the adequate recognition 
by the world of high achievement by ourselves. 
Yet it is notorious that — 

* It is by God decreed 
Fame shall not satisfy the highest need.' 

It has been my lot to know not a few of the 
famous men of our generation, and I have always 
observed that this is profoundly true. Like all 
other * moral' satisfactions, this soon palls by 
custom, and as soon as one end of distinction is 
reached, another is pined for. There is no final- 
ity to rest in, while disease and death are always 
standing in the background. Custom may even 



l62 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

blind men to their misery, so far as not to make 
them realize what is wanting ; yet the want is 
there. 

I take it then as unquestionably true that 
this whole negative side of the subject proves a 
vacuum in the soul of man which nothing can 
fill save faith in God. 

Now take the positive side. Consider the 
happiness of religious — and chiefly of the high- 
est religious, i. e. Christian — belief. It is a mat- 
ter of fact that besides being most intense, it is 
most enduring, growing, and never staled by cus- 
tom. In short, according to the universal testi- 
mony of those who have it, it differs from all 
other happiness not only in degree but in kind. 
Those who have it can usually testify to what 
they used to be without it. It has no relation to 
intellectual status. It is a thing by itself and 
supreme. 

So much for the individual. But positive evi- 
dence does not end here. Look at the effects of 
Christian belief as exercised on human society — 
1st, by individual Christians on the family, &c.; 
and, 2nd, by the Christian Church on the world. 

All this may lead on to an argument from the 
adaptation of Christianity to human higher needs. 
All men must feel these needs more or less in pro- 
portion as their higher natures, moral and spiritual, 
are developed. Now Christianity is the only 
religion which is adapted to meet them, and, 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 163 

according to those who are alone able to testify, 
does so most abundantly. All these men, of every 
sect, nationality, &c., agree in their account of 
their subjective experience ; so as to this there 
can be no question. The only question is as to 
whether they are all deceived. 

PEU DE CHOSE. 

* La vie est vaine : 

Un peu d'amour, 
Un peu de haine . . . 

Et puis — bon jour ! 



La vie est br^ve : 

Un peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de reve . . . 

F.f- nm't; — hnn <sr»ir I ' 



Et puis — bon soir ! 

The above is a terse and true criticism of this 
life without hope of a future one. Is it satis- 
factory ? But Christian faith, as a matter of fact, 
changes it entirely. 

* The night has a thousand eyes, 

And the day but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole world dies 

With the setting sun. 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

And the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 

When love is done.' 

Love is known to be all this. How great, then, 
is Christianity, as being the religion of love, and 
causing men to believe both in the cause of love's 
supremacy and the infinity of God's love to man. 



§ 5. FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity comes up for serious investigation 
in the present treatise, because this Examination 
of Religio7i [i. e. of the validity of the religious 
consciousness] has to do with the evidences of 
Theism presented by man, and not only by nature 
minus man. Now of the religious consciousness 
Christianity is unquestionably the highest product. 

When I wrote the preceding treatise [the 
Candid Examination^ I did not sufficiently appre- 
ciate the immense importance of huma7i nature, as 
distinguished from physical nature, in any enquiry 
touching Theism. But since then I have seri- 
ously studied anthropology (including the science 
of comparative religions), psychology and meta- 
physics, with the result of clearly seeing that 
human nature is the most important part of nature 
as a whole whereby to investigate the theory of 
Theism. This I ought to have anticipated on 
merely a priori grounds, and no doubt should 
have perceived, had I not been too much immersed 
in merely physical research. 

Moreover, in those days I took it for granted 
that Christianity was played out, and never con- 
sidered it at all as having any rational bearing on 
the question of Theism. And, though this was 

164 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 165 

doubtless inexcusable, I still think that the 
rational standing of Christianity has materially 
improved since then. For then it seemed that 
Christianity was destined to succumb as a rational 
system before the double assault of Darwin from 
without and the negative school of criticism from 
within. Not only the book of organic nature, but 
likewise its own sacred documents, seemed to be 
declaring against it. But now all this has been 
very materially changed. We have all more or 
less grown to see that Darwinism is like Coperni- 
canism, &c., in this respect;'' while the outcome 
of the great textual battle^ is impartially consid- 
ered a signal victory for Christianity. Prior to 
the new [Biblical] science, there was really no 
rational basis in thoughtful minds, either for the 
date of any one of the New Testament books, or, 
consequently, for the historical truth of any one 
of the events narrated in them. Gospels, Acts 
and Epistles were all alike shrouded in this uncer- 
tainty. Hence the validity of the eighteenth- 
century scepticism. But now all this kind of 
scepticism has been rendered obsolete, and for- 
ever impossible ; while the certainty of enough of 
St. Paul's writings for the practical purpose of 
displaying the belief of the apostles has been 

* [i. e. A theory which comes at first as a shock to the 
current teaching of Christianity, but is finally seen to be in no 
antagonism to its necessary principles. — Ed.] 

2 [i. e. The battle in regard to the Christian texts or documents. 
—Ed.] 



1 66 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

established, as well as the certainty of the publi- 
cation of the Synoptics within the first century. 
An enormous gain has thus accrued to the 
objective evidences of Christianity. It is most 
important that the expert investigator should be 
exact, and, as in any other science, the lay public 
must take on authority as trustworthy only what 
both sides are agreed upon. But, as in any other 
science, experts are apt to lose sight of the impor- 
tance of the main results agreed upon, in their 
fighting over lesser points still in dispute. Now 
it is enough for us that the Epistles to the Romans, 
Galatians, and Corinthians, have been agreed 
upon as genuine, and that the same is true of the 
Synoptics so far as concerns the main doctrine of 
Christ Himself. 

The extraordinary candour of Christ's biog- 
raphers must not be forgotten.^ Notice also 
such sentences as * but some doubted,* and (in 
the account of Pentecost) 'these men are full of 
new wine. *^ Such observations are wonderfully 
true to human nature ; but no less wonderfully 
opposed to any * accretion ' theory. 

Observe, when we become honestly pure agnos- 
tics the whole scene changes by the change in our 
point of view. We may then read the records 
impartially, or on their own merits, without any 

^ See Gore's Bampton Lectures, pp. 74 ff. 
2 Matt, xxviii. 17 ; Acts ii. 13. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 167 

antecedent conviction that they must be false. 
It is then an open question whether they are not 
true as history. 

There is so much to be said in objective 
evidence for Christianity that were the central 
doctrines thus testified to anything short of 
miraculous, no one would doubt. But we are not 
competent judges a priori of what a revelation 
should be. If our agnosticism be pure^ we have 
no right to prejudge the case on prima facie 
grounds. 

One of the strongest pieces of objective 
evidence in favour of Christianity is not sufficiently 
enforced by apologists. Indeed, I am not aware 
that I have ever seen it mentioned. It is the 
absence from the biography of Christ of any 
doctrines which the subsequent growth of human 
knowledge — whether in natu,ral science, ethics, 
political economy, or elsewhere — has had to dis- 
count. This negative argument is really almost 
as strong as is the positive one from what Christ 
did teach. For when we consider what a large 
number of sayings are recorded of — or at least 
attributed to — Him, it becomes most remarkable 
that in literal truth there is no reason why any of 
His words should ever pass away in the sense of 
becoming obsolete. * Not even now could it be 
easy,' says John Stuart Mill, * even for an 
unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule 



l68 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than 
to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve 
our life/ ^ Contrast Jesus Christ in this respect 
with other thinkers of like antiquity. Even Plato, 
who, though some 400 years B. C. in point of 
time, was greatly in advance of Him in respect of 
philosophic thought — not only because Athens 
then presented the extraordinary phenomenon 
which it did of genius in all directions never since 
equalled, but also because he, following Socrates, 
was, so to speak, the greatest representative of 
human reason in the direction of spirituality — 
even Plato, I say, is nowhere in this respect as 
compared with Christ. Read the dialogues, and 
see how enormous is the contrast with the Gospels 
in respect of errors of all kinds — reaching even 
to absurdity in respect of reason, and to sayings 
shocking to the moral sense. Yet this is con- 
fessedly the highest level of human reason on the 
lines of spirituality, when unaided by alleged 
revelation. 

Two things may be said in reply. First, that 
the Jews (Rabbis) of Christ's period had enunci- 
ated most of Christ's ethical sayings. But, even so 
far as this is true, the sayings were confessedly 
extracted or deduced from the Old Testament, and 
so ex hypothesi due to original inspiration. Again, 
it is not very far true, because, as Ecce Homo says, 
the ethical sayings of Christ, even when antici- 

* Three Essays on Theis??iy p. 255. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 169 

pated by Rabbis and the Old Testament, were 
selected by Him. 

It is a general, if not a universal, rule that those 
who reject Christianity with contempt are those 
who care not for religion of any kind. * Depart 
from us' has always been the sentiment of such. 
On the other hand, those in whom the religious 
sentiment is intact, but who have rejected Chris- 
tianity on intellectual grounds, still almost deify 
Christ. These facts are remarkable. 

If we estimate the greatness of a man by the 
influence which he has exerted on mankind, there 
can be no question, even from the secular point 
of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who 
has ever lived. 

It is on all sides worth considering (blatant 
ignorance or base vulgarity alone excepted) that 
the revolution effected by Christianity in human 
life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other 
movement in history ; though most nearly ap- 
proached by that of the Jewish religion, of which, 
however, it is a development, so that it may be 
regarded as of a piece with it. If thus regarded, 
this whole system of religion is so immeasurably 
in advance of all others, that it may fairly be said, 
if it had not been for the Jews, the human race 
would not have had any religion worth our serious 
attention as such. The whole of that side of human 
nature would never have been developed in civil- 



I70 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

ized life. And although there are numberless 
individuals who are not conscious of its develop- 
ment in themselves, yet even these have been 
influenced to an enormous extent by the atmos- 
phere of religion around them. 

But not only is Christianity thus so immeas- 
urably in advance of all other religions. It is no 
less so of every other system of thought that has 
ever been promulgated in regard to all that is 
moral and spiritual. Whether it be true or false, 
it is certain that neither philosophy, science nor 
poetry has ever produced results in thought, con- 
duct, or beauty in any degree to be compared 
with it. This I think will be on all hands allowed 
as regards conduct. As regards thought and 
beauty it may be disputed. But, consider, what 
has all the science or all the philosophy of the 
world done for the thought of mankind to be 
compared with the one doctrine, *God is love?' 
Whether or not true, conceive what belief in it 
has been to thousands of millions of our race — 
i. e. its influence on human thought, and thence 
on human conduct. Thus to admit its incom- 
parable influence in conduct is indirectly to admit 
it as regards thought. Again, as regards beauty, 
the man who fails to see its incomparable excel- 
lence in this respect merely shows his own defi- 
ciency in the appreciation of all that is noblest in 
man. True or not true, the entire Story of the Cross, 
from its commencement in prophetic aspiration 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 17 I 

to its culmination in the Gospel, is by far the most 
magnificent [presentation] in literature. And 
surely the fact of its having all been lived does 
not detract from its poetic value. Nor does the 
fact of its being capable of appropriation by the 
individual Christian of to-day as still a vital reli- 
gion detract from its sublimity. Only to a man 
wholly destitute of spiritual perception can it be 
that Christianity should fail to appear the greatest 
exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all 
else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which 
has ever been known upon our earth. 

Yet this side of its adaptation is turned only 
towards men of highest culture. The most re- 
markable thing about Christianity is its adapta- 
tion to all sorts and conditions of men. Are you 
highly intellectual? There is in its problems, 
historical and philosophical, such worlds of mate- 
rial as you may spend your life upon with the 
same interminable interest as is open to the stu- 
dents of natural science. Or are you but a peas- 
ant in your parish church, with knowledge of little 
else than your Bible? Still are you . . .' 

REGENERATION. 

How remarkable is the doctrine of Regenera- 
tion per se, as it is stated in the New Testament,"* 
and how completely it fits in with the non-demon- 

'[Note unfinished. — Ed.] 

2 [George Romanes began to make a collection of N, T, texts 
bearing on the subject. — Ed.] 



172 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

strative character of Revelation to reason alone, 
with the hypothesis of moral probation, &c. Now 
this doctrine is one of the distinctive notes of 
Christianity. That is, Christ foretold repeatedly 
and distinctly — as did also His apostles after 
Him — that while those who received the Holy 
Ghost, who came to the Father through faith in 
the Son, who were born again of the Spirit, (and 
many other synonymous phrases,) would be abso- 
lutely certain of Christian truth as it were by 
direct vision or intuition, the carnally minded on 
the other hand would not be affected by any 
amount of direct evidence, even though one rose 
from the dead — as indeed Christ shortly after- 
wards did, with fulfilment of this prediction. 
Thus scepticism may be taken by Christians as 
corroborating Christianity. 

By all means let us retain our independence of 
judgment ; but this is pre-eminently a matter in 
which pure agnostics must abstain from arrogance 
and consider the facts impartially as unquestion- 
able phenomena of experience. 

Shortly after the death of Christ, this phenom- 
enon which had been foretold by Him occurred, 
and appears to have done so for the first time. 
It has certainly continued to manifest itself ever 
since, and has been attributed by professed his- 
torians to that particular moment in time called 
Pentecost, producing much popular excitement 
and a large number of Christian believers. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 173 

But, whether or not we accept this account, it 
is unquestionable that the apostles were filled 
with faith in the person and office of their Master, 
which is enough to justify His doctrine of regene- 
ration. 

CONVERSIONS. 

St. Augustine after thirty years of age, and 
other Fathers, bear testimony to a sudden, endur- 
ing and extraordinary change in themselves, called 
co7iversio7i,^ 

Now this experience has been repeated and 
testified to by countless millions of civilized m.en 
and women in all nations and all degrees of cul- 
ture. It signifies not whether the conversion be 
sudden or gradual, though, as a psychological 
phenomenon, it is more remarkable when sudden 
and there is no symptom of mental aberration 
otherwise. But even as a gradual growth in 
mature age, its evidential value is not less. (Cf. 
Bunyan, &c.) 

In all cases it is not a mere change of belief or 
opinion ; this is by no means the point ; the point is 
that it is a modification of character, more or less 
profound. 

Seeing what a complex thing is character, this 
change therefore cannot be simple. That it may 
all be due to so-called natural causes is no evi- 
dence against its so-called supernatural course, 

^ See Pascal, FenseeSy p. 245. 



174 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

unless we beg the whole question of the Divine 
in nature. To pure agnostics the evidence from 
conversions and regeneration lies in the bulk of 
these psychological phenomena, shortly after the 
death of Christ, with their continuance ever since, 
their general similarity all over the world, &c., &c. 

CHRISTIANITY AND PAIN. 

Christanity, from its foundation in Judaism, 
has throughout been a religion of sacrifice and 
sorrow. It has been a religion of blood and tears, 
and yet of profoundest happiness to its votaries. 
The apparent paradox is due to its depth, and to 
the union of these seemingly diverse roots in Love. 
It has been throughout and growingly a religion 
— or rather let us say the religion — of Love, with 
these apparently opposite qualities. Probably it 
is only those whose characters have been deep- 
ened by experiences gained in this religion itself 
who are so much as capable of intelligently resolv- 
ing this paradox. 

Fakirs hang on hooks. Pagans cut themselves 
and even their children, sacrifice captives, &c., for 
the sake of propitiating diabolical deities. The 
Jewish and Christian idea of sacrifice is doubtless 
a survival of this idea of God by way of natural 
causation, yet this is no evidence against the com- 
pleted idea of the Godhead being [such as the 
Christian belief represents it], for supposing the 
completed idea to be true, the earlier ideals would 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 175 

have been due to the earlier inspirations, in accor- 
dance with the developmental method of Revela- 
tion hereafter to be discussed.^ 

But Christianity, with its roots in Judaism, is, 
as I have said, par excellence the religion of sor- 
row, because it reaches to truer and deeper levels 
of our spiritual nature, and therefore has capa- 
bilities both of sorrow and joy which are presum- 
ably non-existent except in civilized man. I 
mean the sorrows and joys of a fully evolved 
spiritual life — such as were attained wonderfully 
early, historically speaking, in the case of the 
Jews, and are now universally diffused through- 
out Christendom. In short, the sorrows and the 
joys in question are those which arise from the 
fully developed consciousness of sin against a 
God of Love, as distinguished from propitiation 
of malignant spirits. These joys and sorrows 
are wholly spiritual, not merely physical, and 
culminate in the cry, * Thou desirest no sacrifice. 
. . . The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit.'^ 

I agree with Pascal 3 that there is virtually 
nothing to be gained by being a theist as dis- 
tinguished from a Christian. Unitarianism is 
only an affair of the reason — a merely abstract 
theory of the mind, having nothing to do with 

^[ The notes on this subject were often too fragmentary for 
publication. — Ed,] 
^Ps. li. 
'^Pensies^ pp. 91-93. 



176 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the heart, or the real needs of mankind. It is 
only when it takes the New Testament, tears out 
a few of its leaves relating to the divinity of 
Christ, and appropriates all the rest, that its sys- 
tem becomes in any degree possible as a basis 
for personal religion. 

If there is a Deity it seems to be in some 
indefinite degree more probable that He should 
impart a Revelation than that He should 
not. 

Women, as a class, are in all countries much 
more disposed to Christianity than men. I 
think the scientific explanation of this is to be 
found in the causes assigned in my essay on 
Mental differe?ices betzvee?i Me?i a?id Womtn^ But, 
if Christianity be supposed true, there would, of 
course, be a more ultimate explanation of a reli- 
gious kind — as in all other cases where causation 
is concerned. And, in that case I have no doubt 
that the largest part of the explanation would 
consist in the passions of women being less 
ardent than those of men, and also much more 
kept under restraint by social conditions of life. 
This applies not only to purity, but likewise 
to most of the other psychological differentiae 
between the sexes, such as ambition, selfishness, 
pride of power, and so forth. In short, the 
whole ideal of Christian ethics is of a feminine 

^See Nineteenth Century y May, 1887. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 177 

as distinguished from a masculine type.^ Now 
nothing is so inimical to Christian belief as 
un-Christian conduct. This is especially the 
case as regards impurity ; for whether the fact be 
explained on religious or non-religious grounds, it 
has more to do with unbelief than has the specu- 
lative reason. Consequently, woman is, for all 
these reasons the * fitter' type for receiving and 
retaining Christian belief. 

Modern agnosticism is performing this great 
service to Christian faith ; it is silencing all 
rational scepticism of the a priori^kind. And this 
it is bound to do more and more the purer it 
becomes. In every generation it must henceforth 
become more and more recognized by logical 
thinking, that all antecedent objections to Chris- 
tianity founded on reason alone are ipso facto 
nugatory. Now, all the strongest objections to 
Christianity have ever been those of the ante- 
cedent kind ; hence the effect of modern thinking 
is that of more and more diminishing the purely 
speculative difificulties, such as that of the Incar- 
nation, &c. In other words, the force of Butler's 

' [The essay mentioned above should be read in explanation 
of this expression. George Romanes' meaning would be more 
accurately expressed, I think, had he said: *The ideal of Chris- 
tian character holds in prominence the elements which we regard 
as characteristically feminine, e. g. development of affections, 
readiness of trust, love of service, readiness to suffer, &c.' — 
Ed.] 



178 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

argument about our being incompetent judges' is 
being more and more increased. 

And the logical development of this lies in 
the view already stated about natural causation. 
For, just as pure agnosticism must allow that 
reason is incompetent to adjudicate a priori for or 
against Christian miracles, including the Incarna- 
tion, so it must further allow that, if they ever 
took place, reason can have nothing to say against 
their being all of one piece with causation in gen- 
eral. Hence, so far as reason is concerned, pure 
agnosticism must allow that it is only the event 
which can ultimately prove whether Christianity 
is true or false. *If it be of God we cannot over- 
throw it, lest haply we be found even to fight 
against God.* But the individual cannot wait for 
this empirical determination. What then is he to 
do ? The unbiassed answer of pure agnosticism 
ought reasonably to be, in the words of John 
Hunter, ' Do not think ; try.* That is, in this 
case, try the only experiment available — the 
experiment of faith. Do the doctrine, and if 
Christianity be true, the verification will come, 
not indeed mediately through any course of spec- 
ulative reason, but immediately by spiritual 
intuition. Only if a man has faith enough to 
make this venture honestly, will he be in a just 
position for deciding the issue. Thus viewed it 
would seem that the experiment of faith is not a 

' See Analogy part i. ch. 7 ; part ii. ch. 3, 4, &c. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 179 

*foors experiment;' but, on the contrary, so that 
there is enough pri7na facie evidence to arrest 
serious attention, such an experimental trial 
would seem to be the rational duty of a pure 
agnostic. 

It is a fact that Christian belief is much more 
due to doing than to thinking, as prognosticated 
by the New Testament. *If any man will do His 
will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 
of God' (St. John vii. 17). And surely, even on 
grounds of reason itself, it should be allowed that, 
supposing Christianity to be *of God,' it ought to 
appeal to the spiritual rather than to the rational 
side of our nature. 

Even within the region of pure reason (or the 
^ prima facie case') modern science, as directed on 
the New Testament criticism, has surely done 
more for Christianity than against it. For, after 
half a century of battle over the text by the best 
scholars, the dates of the Gospels have been fixed 
within the first century, and at least four of St. 
Paul's epistles have had their authenticity proved 
beyond doubt. Now this is enough to destroy 
all eighteenth-century criticism as to the doubt- 
fulness of the historical existence of Christ and 
His apostles, * inventions of priests,' &c., which 
was the most formidable kind of criticism of all. 
There is no longer any question as to historical 
facts, save the miraculous, which, however, are 



i8o THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

ruled out by negative criticism on merely a priori 
grounds. This remaining — and, ex hypothesiy 
necessary — doubt is of very different importance 
from the other. 

Again, the Pauline epistles of proved authen- 
ticity are enough for all that is wanted to show 
the belief of Christ's contemporaries. 

These are facts of the first order of importance 
to have proved. Old Testament criticism is as 
yet too immature to consider. 

PLAN IN REVELATION. 

The views which I entertained on this subject 
when an undergraduate [i. e. the ordinary ortho- 
dox views] were abandoned in presence of the 
theory of Evolution — i. e. the theory of nat- 
ural causation as probably furnishing a scientific 
explanation [of the religious phenomena of Juda- 
ism] or, which is the same thing, an explanation 
in terms of ascertainable causes up to some certain 
point ; which however in this particular case can- 
not be determined within wide limits, so that the 
history of Israel will always embody an element 
of * mystery* much more than any other history. 

It was not until twenty-five years later that I 
saw clearly the full implications of my present 
views on natural causation. As applied to this 
particular case these views show that to a theist, 
at all events (i.e. to any one who on independent 
grounds has accepted the theory of Theism), it 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. i8i 

ought not to make much difference to the evi- 
dential value of the Divine Plan of Revelation as 
exhibited in the Old and New Testaments, even 
if it be granted that the whole has been due to 
so-called natural causes only. I say, *not much 
difference,' for that it ought to make some dif- 
ference I do not deny. Take a precisely anal- 
ogous case. The theory of evolution by natural 
causes is often said to make no logical difference 
in the evidence of plan or design manifested in 
organic nature — it being only a question of modus 
operandi whether all pieces of organic machinery 
were produced suddenly or by degrees ; the 
evidence of design is equally there in either 
case. Now I have shown elsewhere that this is 
wrong. ^ 

It may not make much difference to a man who 
is already a theist, for then it is but a question 
of modus, but it makes a great difference to the 
evidence of Theism. 

So it is in evidence of plan in proof of a reve- 
lation. If there had been no alleged revelation 
up to the present time, and if Christ were now to 
appear suddenly in His first advent in all the 
power and glory which Christians expect for His 
second, the proof of His revelation would be 
demonstrative. So that, as a mere matter of 
evidence, a sudden revelation might be much 
more convincing than a gradual one. But it would 

^ See Conclusion of Darwin and After Darwin, part I. 



l82 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

be quite out of analogy with causation in nature.^ 
Besides, even a gradual revelation might be given 
easily, which would be of demonstrative value — 
as by making prophecies of historical events, 
scientific discoveries, 8z:c., so clear as to be un- 
mistakable. But, as before shown a demon- 
strative revelation has not been made, and there 
may well be good reasons why it should not. 
Now, if there are such reasons (e. g. our state of 
probation), we can well see that the gradual un- 
folding of a plan of revelation, from earliest dawn 
of history to the end of the world ('I speak as a 
foor) is much preferable to a sudden manifesta- 
tion sufficiently late in the world's history to be 
historically attested for all subsequent time. For 

1st. Gradual evolution is in analogy with God's 
other work. 

2nd. It does not leave Him without witness 
at any time during the historical period. 

3rd. It gives ample scope for persevering 
research at all times — i. e. a moral test, and not 
merely an intellectual assent to some one [ex 
hypothesi) unequivocally attested event in history. 

The appearance of plan in revelation is in 
fact, certainly remarkable enough to arrest seri- 
ous attention. 

If revelation has been of a progressive char- 
acter, then it follows that it must have been so, 

^ I should somewhere show how much better a treatise Butler 
might have written had he known about evolution as the general 
law of nature. 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 183 

not only historically, but likewise intellectually, 
morally, and spiritually. For thus only could it 
be always adapted to the advancing conditions of 
the human race. This reflection destroys all those 
numerous objections against Scripture on account 
of the absurdity or immorality of its statements 
or precepts, unless it can be shown that the modi- 
fications suggested by criticism as requisite to 
bring the statements or precepts into harmony 
with modern advancement would have been as 
well adapted to the requirements of the world at 
the date in question, as were the actual state- 
ments or precepts before us. 

Supposing Christianity true, it is certain that 
the revelation which it conveys has been prede- 
termined at least since the dawn of the historical 
period. This is certain because the objective 
evidences of Christianity as a revelation have 
their origin in that dawn. And these objective 
evidences are throughout [evidence] of a scheme, 
in which the end can be seen from the beginning. 
And the very methods whereby this scheme is 
itself revealed are such (still supposing that it is 
a scheme) as present remarkable evidences of 
design. These methods are, broadly speaking, 
miracles, prophecy and the results of the teach- 
ing, &c., upon mankind. Now one may show 
that no better methods could conceivably have 
been designed for the purpose of latter-day evi- 



1 84 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

dence, combined with moral and religious teach- 
ing throughout. The mere fact of it being so 
largely incorporated with secular history renders 
the Christian religion unique : so to speak, the 
world, throughout its entire historical period, has 
been constituted the canvas on which this divine 
revelation has been painted — and painted so grad- 
ually that not until the process had been going 
on for a couple of thousand years was it possible 
to perceive the subject thereof. 

CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 
Whether or not Christ was Himself divine 
would make no difference so far as the considera- 
tion of Christianity as the highest phase of evolu- 
tion is concerned, or from the purely secular [scien- 
tific] point of view. From the religious point of 
view, or that touching the relation of God to man, 
it would of course make a great difference ; but 
the difference belongs to the same region of 
thought as that which applies to all the previous 
moments of evolution. Thus the passage from 
the non-moral to the moral appears, from the 
secular or scientific point of view, to be due, as 
far as we can see, to mechanical causes in natural 
selection or what not. But, just as in the case of 
the passage from the non-mental to the mental, 
&c., this passage may have been ultimately due to 
divine volition, and must have been so due on the 
theory of Theism. Therefore, I say, it makes no 
difference from a secular or scientific point of 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 185 

view whether or not Christ was Himself divine ; 
since, in either case, the movement which He 
inaugurated was the proximate or phenomenal 
cause of the observable resultSc 

Thus, even the question of the divinity of Christ 
ultimately resolves itself into the question of all 
questions ^ — viz. is or is not mechanical causation 
'the outward and visible form of an inward and 
spiritual grace ?' Is it phenomenal or ontological ; 
ultimate or derivative ? 

Similarly as regards the redemption. Whether 
or not Christ was really divine, in as far as a belief 
in His divinity has been a necessary cause of the 
moral and religious evolution which has resulted 
from His life on earth, it has equally and so far 
* saved His people from their sins'; that is, of 
course, it has saved them from their own sense of 
sin as an abiding curse. Whether or not He has 
effected any corresponding change of an objective 
character in the ontological sphere, again depends 
on the * question of questions' just stated. 

REASONABLENESS OF THE DOCTRINES OF THE 
INCARNATION AND THE TRINITY. 

Pure agnostics and those who search for God 
in Christianity should have nothing to do with 
metaphysical theology. That is a department of 
enquiry which, ex hypothesi, is transcendental, and 
is only to be considered after Christianity has been 
accepted. The doctrines of the Incarnation and 



1 86 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

the Trinity seemed to me most absurd in my 
agnostic days. But now, as a /^r^ agnostic, I see 
in them no rational difificulty at all. As to the 
Trinity, the plurality of persons is necessarily 
implied in the companion doctrine of the Incar- 
nation. So that at best there is here but one dif- 
ficulty, since, duality being postulated in the doc- 
trine of the Incarnation, there is no further diffi- 
culty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of 
plurality. Now at one time it seemed to me 
impossible that any proposition, verbally intelli- 
gible as such, could be more violently absurd than 
that of the doctrine [of the Incarnation]. Now 
I see that this standpoint is wholly irrational, 
due only to the blindness of reason itself promoted 
by [purely] scientific habits of thought. * But it 
is opposed to common sense.' No doubt, utterly 
so ; but so it ought to be if true. Common sense 
is merely a [rough] register of common experi- 
ence ; but the Incarnation, if it ever took place, 
whatever else it may have been, at all events 
cannot have been a common event. * But it is 
derogatory to God to become man.' How do you 
know ? Besides, Christ was not an ordinary man. 
Both negative criticism and the historical effects 
of His life prove this ; while, if we for a moment 
adopt the Christian point of view for the sake of 
argument, the whole raison d'etre of mankind is 
bound up in Him. Lastly, there are considerations 
per contra^ rendering an incarnation antecedently 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 187 

probable.' On antecedent grounds there niMst 
be mysteries unintelligible to reason as to the 
nature of God, &c., supposing a revelation to be 
made at all. Therefore their occurrence in Chris- 
tianity is no proper objection to Christianity. 
Why, again, stumble a priori over the doctrine of 
the Trinity — especially as man himself is a tri- 
une being, of body, mind (i. e. reason), and spirit 
(i. e. moral, aesthetic, religious faculties)? The 
unquestionable union of these no less unquestion- 
ably distinct orders of being in man is known 
immediately as a fact of experience, but is as 
unintelligible by any process of logic or reason 
as is the alleged triunity of God. 

ADAM, THE FALL, THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 

These, all taken together as Christian dogmas, 
are undoubtedly hard hit by the scientific proof 
of evolution (but are the only dogmas which can 
fairly be said to be so), and, as constituting the 
logical basis of the whole plan, they certainly do 
appear at first sight necessarily to involve in their 
destruction that of the entire superstructure. But 
the question is whether, after all, they have been 
destroyed for a pure agnostic. In other words, 
whether my principles are not as applicable in 
turning the flank of infidelity here as everywhere 
else. 

First, as regards Adam and Eve, observe to 

' See Gore's Bampton Lectures, lect. ii. 



1 88 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

begin with, that long before Darwin the story of 
man in Paradise was recognized by thoughtful 
theologians as allegorical. Indeed, read with un- 
prejudiced eyes, the first chapters of Genesis 
ought always to have been seen to be a poem as 
distinguished from a history : nor could it ever 
have been mistaken for a history, but for precon- 
ceived ideas on the matter of inspiration. But to 
pure agnostics there should be no such precon- 
ceived ideas ; so that nowadays no presumption 
should be raised against it as inspired^ merely 
because it has been proved not to be a history — 
and this even though we cannot see of what it is 
allegorical. For, supposing it inspired, it has 
certainly done good service in the past and can 
do so likewise in the present, by giving an alle- 
gorical, though not a literal, starting-point for the 
Divine Plan of Redemption. 

THE EVIDENCE OF NATURAL AND REVEALED 
RELIGION COMPARED. 

It is often said that evolution of organic forms 
gives as good evidence of design as would their 
special creation, inasmuch as all the facts of 
adaptation, in which the evidence consists, are 
there in either case. But here it is overlooked 
that the very question at issue is thus begged. 
The question is. Are these facts of adaptation per 
se sufficient evidence of design as their cause ? 
But if it be allowed, as it must be, that under 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 189 

hypothesis of evolution by natural causes the 
facts of adaptation belong to the same category 
as all the other facts of nature, no more special 
argument for design can be founded on these 
facts than on any others in nature. So that the 
facts of adaptation, like all other facts, are only 
available as arguments for design when it is 
assumed that all natural causation is of a mental 
character : which assumption merely begs the 
question of design anywhere. Or, in other 
words, on the supposition of their having been 
due to natural causes, the facts of adaptation are 
only then available as per se good evidence of 
design, when it has already been assumed that, 
qua due to natural causes, they are due to design. 

Natural religion resembles Revealed religion 
in this. Supposing both divine, both have been 
arranged so that, as far as reason can lead us, 
there is only enough evidence of design to arouse 
serious attention to the question of it. In other 
words, as regards both, the attitude of pure 
reason ought to be that of pure agnosticism. 
(Observe that the inadequacy of teleology, or 
design in nature, to prove Theism has been ex- 
pressly recognized by all the more intellectual 
Christians of all ages, although such recognition 
has become more general since Darwin. On this 
point I may refer to Pascal especially,^ and many 
other authors.) This is another striking analogy 

^FensieSy pp. 205 ff. 



IQO THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

between Nature and Revelation, supposing both 
to have emanated from the same author — i. e. 
quite as much so as identity of developmental 
method in both. 

Siipposiiig the hypothesis of design in both to be 
true^ it follows that in both this hypothesis can be 
alike verified only by the organ of immediate 
intuition — i. e, that other mode of human appre- 
hension which is supplementary to the rational. 
Here again we note the analogy. And if a man 
has this supplementary mode of apprehending the 
highest truth (by hypothesis such), it will be his 
duty to exercise his spiritual eyesight in search- 
ing for God in nature as in revelation, when (still 
on our present hypothesis that * God is, and is the 
rewarder of them who seek Him diligently') he 
will find that his subjective evidence of God in 
Nature and in Revelation will mutually corrobor- 
ate one another — so yielding additional evidence 
to his reason. 

The teleology of Revelation supplements that 
of Nature, and so, to the spiritually minded man, 
they logically and mutually corroborate one 
another. 

Paley*s writings form an excellent illustration 
of the identity of the teleological argument from 
Nature and from Revelation ; though a very 
imperfect illustration of the latter taken by itself, 
inasmuch as he treats only of the New Testament, 
and even of that ver)^ partially — ignoring all that 



I 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 191 

went before Christ, and much of what happened 
after the apostles. Yet Paley himself does not 
seem to have observed the similarity of the argu- 
ment, as developed in his Natural Theology and 
Evide?ices of Cliristiaiiity respectively. But no one 
has developed the argument better in both cases. 
His great defect was in not perceiving that this 
teleological argument, /^r se, is not in either case 
enough to convince, but only to arouse serious 
attention. Paley everywhere represents that such 
an appeal to reason alone ought to be sufficient. 
He fails to see that if it were, there could be no 
room for faith. In other words, he fails to 
recognize the spiritual organ in man, and its com- 
plementary object, grace in God. So far he fails 
to be a Christian. And, whether Theism and 
Christianity be true or false, it is certain that the 
teleological argument alone ought 'io result, not in 
conviction, but in agnosticism. 

The antecedent improbability against a mira- 
cle being wrought by a man without a moral 
object is apt to be confused with that of its being 
done by God with an adequate moral object. The 
former is immeasurably great ; the latter is only 
equal to that of the theory of Theism — i. e. nil, 
CHRISTIAN DEMONOLOGY.° 

It will be said, * However you may seek to 
explain away a priori objections to miracles on a 

^ [Romane's line of argument in this note seems to me impossi- 



192 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

priori grounds, there remains the fact that Christ 
accepted the current superstition in regard to 
diabolic possession. Now the devils damn the 
doctrine. For you must choose the horn of your 
dilemma, either the current theory was true or 
it was not. If you say true, you must allow that 
the same theory is true for all similar stages of 
culture, [but not for the later stages,] and there- 
fore that the most successful exorcist is Science, 
albeit Science works not by faith in the theory, 
but by rejection of it. Observe, the diseases are 
so well described by the record that there is no 
possibility of mistaking them. Hence you must 
suppose that they were due to devils in a.d. 30, 
and to nervous disorders in*A.D. 1894. On the other 
hand, if you choose the other horn, you must 
accept either the hypothesis of the ignorance or 
that of the mendacity of Christ.' 

The answer is, that either hypothesis may be 
accepted by Christianity. For the sake of argu- 
ment we may exclude the question whether the 
acceptance of the devil theory by Christ was really 
historical, or merely attributed to Him by His 
biographers after His death. If Christ knew that 

ble to maintain. The emphasis which Jesus Christ lays on dia- 
bolic agency is so great that, if it is not a reality, He must be 
regarded either as seriously misled about realities which concern 
the spiritual life, or else as seriously misleading others. And in 
neither case could He be even the perfect Prophet. I think I am 
justified in explaining my disagreement with Romanes' argument 
at this point particularly. — Ed.] 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 193 

the facts were not due to devils, He may also have 
known it was best to fall in with current theory, 
rather than to puzzle the people with a lecture on 
pathology. If He did not know, why should He, 
if he had previously * emptied Himself of omnis- 
cience? In either case, if He had denied the cur- 
rent theory, he would have been giving evidence 
of scientific knowledge or of scientific intuition 
beyond the culture of His time, and this, as in 
countless other cases, was not in accordance with 
His method, which, whether we suppose it divine 
or human, has nowhere proved His divine mission 
by foreknowledge of natural science. 

The particular question of Christ and demon- 
ology is but part of a much larger one. 



DARWIN'S DIFFICULTY.^ 

The answer to Darwin's objection about so 
small a proportion of mankind having ever heard 
of Christ, is manifold : — 

I. Supposing Christianity true, it is the highest 
and final revelation ; i. e. the scheme of revelation 
has been developmental. Therefore it follows 
from the very method that the larger proportion 

' [There is nothing in Darwin's writings which seems to me 
to justify Romanes in attributing this difficulty to him specially. 
But he knew Darwin so intimately and reverenced him so pro- 
foundly that he is not likely to have been in error on this sub- 
ject. — Ed.] 



194 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 

of mankind should never hear of Christ, i. e. all 
who live before his advent. 

2. But these were not left * without witness.* 
They all had their religion and their moral sense, 
each at its appropriate stage of development. 
Therefore *the times of ignorance God winked 
at* (Acts xvii. 30). 

3. Moreover these men were not devoid of 
benefit from Christ, because it is represented that 
He died for all men — i. e. but for Him [i. e. 
apart from the knowledge of what was to come] 
God would not have * winked at the times of 
ignorance.* The efficacy of atonement is repre- 
sented as transcendental, and not dependent on 
the accident of hearing about the Atoner. 

4. It is remarkable that of all men Darwin 
should have been worsted by this fallacious argu- 
ment. For it has received its death-blow from 
the theory of evolution : i. e. if it be true that 
evolution has been the method of natural causa- 
tion, and if it be true that the method of natural 
causation is due to a Divinity, then it follows that 
the lateness of Christ's appearance on earth must 
have been designed. For it is certain that He 
could not have appeared at any earlier date with- 
out having violated the method of evolution. 
Therefore, on the theory of Theism, He ought to 
have appeared when he did — i. e. at the earliest 
possible moment in history. 

So as to the suitability of the moment of 



A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 195 

Christ's appearance in other respects. Even sec- 
ular historians are agreed as to the suitability of 
the combinations, and deduce the success of His 
system of morals and religion from this fact. So 
with students of comparative religions. 



CONCLUDING NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 

The intellectual attitude towards Christianity 
expressed in these notes may be described as — 
(i) *pure agnosticism' in the region of the scien- 
tific 'reason/ coupled with (2) a vivid recognition 
of the spiritual necessity of faith and of the 
legitimacy and value of its intuitions; (3) a 
perception of the positive strength of the histori- 
cal and spiritual evidences of Christianity. 

George Romanes came to recognize, as in 
these written notes so also in conversation, that 
it was * reasonable to be a Christian believer' 
before the activity or habit of faith had been 
recovered. His life was cut short very soon after 
this point was reached ; but it will surprise no one 
to learn that the writer of these 'Thoughts' 
returned before his death to that full, deliberate 
communion with the Church of Jesus Christ which 
he had for so many years been conscientiously 
compelled to forego. In his case the 'pure in 
heart' was after a long period of darkness allowed, 
in a measure before his death, to 'see God.' 

Fecisti nos ad te, Domine ; et inquietMm est cor 
nostrum donee requiescat in te, 

C. G. 



196 



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Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

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A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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